Hunters of Justice (RWBY/DC)

Chapter 60: Terror Time Again

"Move, Jaune, move!" Fred yelled as he and Jaune ran through the underground tunnels. They didn't know where they were going, but with the cultists practically on their heels, they couldn't afford to stop.

"Brothers, they're everywhere!" Jaune shouted as a hidden doorway opened, revealing a pair of cultists carrying knives and flails. He immediately shoulder-checked them, sending the cultists flying back into the stone wall. As they crumpled to the ground, he and Fred continued running without sparing them so much as a second glance. Behind them, they could hear the rest of their pursuers, all of them chanting in a tongue that Jaune couldn't even begin to parse.

Frankly, he still didn't quite understand how the situation could've devolved so much so quickly. One moment, his team and their new friends were solving what appeared to just be a case of real estate fraud. The next, they were running for their lives from the literal Nyarlathotep and his army of worshippers. Simply looking at the eldritch deity was like listening to white noise on full blast, giving him a migraine as his brain tried to comprehend something that just wasn't.

Thank the Brothers that Raven had the foresight to give him and the other members of Teams RWBY and JNPR protection from such things just in case they needed it. Once this was over, he was going to get her something nice.

"We need to get back to the Mystery Machine!" Fred declared as he and Jaune rounded a corner, briefly pausing to throw a haymaker into the face of a cultist who attempted to ambush them. The blow was strong enough to shatter the wooden mask obscuring the man's face, and Jaune kicked him while he was down to finish him off.

"Any idea how to do that?!" Jaune asked, briefly bringing out his scroll. Much to his distress, he found that he was receiving no signal whatsoever, and he didn't know if that was because they were underground or the result of Nyarlathotep's presence.

Either way, he knew Fred was right. Getting to the Mystery Machine was their utmost priority at this point. Both to get the civilians out of harm's way, and so that Jaune and the rest of his team could grab their gear. Mentally, he kicked himself for not bringing Crocea Mors down with him, but he didn't think he'd have to deal with an evil god for a second time.

But what's done is done. Right now, he had to focus on getting outside and calling for reinforcements, assuming the Justice League hadn't already detected what was going on from the Watchtower. He imagined they had, and the Justice League Dark was already on their way. With their help, Jaune was confident they'd be able to stop Nyarlathotep from awakening Cthulhu.

Jaune was broken from his thoughts when they came across a four way intersection. As he and Fred paused to collect their bearings, he asked, "Which way do we go?"

"Let me think!" Fred replied, his head sharply darting around the environment in a desperate attempt to figure out which way to go. Before he could say anything, however, they heard a pair of terrified screams coming from an adjacent tunnel, and he remarked, "That's Shaggy and Scooby!"

True to his word, the young man and canine came barreling through right towards them, with Shaggy carrying a curled-up Scooby in his arms. Nora and Ren were right behind them, the pair taking the opportunity to fight off some cultists who got too close for comfort.

"Red, rhis ray!" Scooby yelled as Shaggy ran right past them, seemingly not caring that he was carrying a hundred-pound Great Dane like it was nothing. Part of Jaune was somewhat impressed by that, but the rest simply went after them.

"I swear, if I had a nickel for every time I had to deal with an evil god, I'd have two nickels!" Nora complained as she and Ren caught up to Jaune and Fred. "Which isn't a lot, but it's weird it's happened twice!"

"Like, same here man!" Shaggy yelled back from the front of the group.

That only raised more questions in Jaune's mind, but he figured that could come later as they continued to run.

"Yes, keep running. Keep…resisting," they suddenly heard Nyarlathotep's voice in the back of their minds, like the internalized sound of nails on a chalk board. They grit their teeth as migraines sprang up once again, but they were able to push through and keep going.

"Shut up!" Nora spat while Ren quickly jump kicked another ambushing cultist without pausing in his escape.

Nyarlathotep merely chuckled, and despite not being physically present they could almost feel his cold breath on the back of their necks as he continued, "None of you children seem to quite understand the situation you find yourselves in. Allow me to…educate you. I am a being beyond your comprehension, beyond this pitiful reality you call home. Your attempts at resistance are merely delaying the inevitable. But by all means, keep trying, keep struggling. Watching you humans squirm brings me no greater pleasure in this vast universe."

The eldritch being began to laugh, each sound of mirth sending shivers down their spines. But it didn't cause them to falter. Instead, the young adults picked up the pace, particularly Shaggy and Scooby, who disappeared from view. Not long after, they heard a commotion coming from ahead of them, and after rounding a corner they saw a cultist getting flung backward into an adjacent hallway, followed by several small weapons. They could hear an intense brawl, and the Remnantians immediately pushed ahead of Fred Jones to engage the newfound threats.

Only for Daphne to suddenly appear with Pyrrha at her back, the pair holding the broken shafts of what used to be spears with the tips removed. Using them as staffs, the pair of young women fended off a small group of cultists in seamless harmony. For Jaune, seeing Pyrrha in action wasn't anything new. He witnessed it first-hand every single day whenever she whupped his butt during training. But seeing Daphne Blake effortlessly parry blows from different opponents at the same time before disarming and hitting them back in the same movement completely shocked him.

"When did you get so good at fighting?" Pyrrha couldn't help but ask as the pair finished the rest of the cultists off.

"Well, after you get kidnapped for the fifth time, a girl has to learn to defend herself," Daphne succinctly answered as she knocked out the final cultist with a sharp blow to the head with her staff. "Help's that my older sister's in the Army."

Pyrrha regarded Daphne for a moment before shrugging in acceptance, while Ren just said, "While this is fascinating, we need to go, now!"

The others nodded in agreement, only for Fred to ask, "Wait, where's Velma?"

Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, they heard a sound that reminded them of a rocket engine firing, drawing their attention. Just then, they saw Penny fly right past them, carrying the still blubbering body of Mr. Blackman and a screaming Velma being pulled behind her.

"…There she is," Daphne couldn't help but state the obvious as she and the others stared after Penny's departing form.

When they heard the sound of more approaching cultists, the young mystery solvers picked up the pace once again and followed their friends. The shadows seemed to stretch and deepen the more they ran, with the Crawling Chaos' incessant laughter echoing in their minds. It was taking all of Jaune's will to keep himself in focus, but even with Raven's protection, he doubted they'd be able to withstand the eldritch powers for long.

Thankfully, after running for what felt like an eternity, they saw a light at the end of the tunnel as the ground started to slope upward. They soon came across an old wooden staircase that led to an already opened cellar door. The wood creaked under their combined weight, but it held long enough for Jaune and the others to reach the top. He found himself standing in the middle of the woods just outside the mansion overlooking the cliffside. The rain had died down by now, allowing the light of the full moon to shine from above, but he wasn't particularly focused on that. Instead, Jaune remained transfixed on the thick, unnatural fog that surrounded the mansion, reaching out into the ocean beyond.

"Fred, Velma…," Daphne muttered as Pyrrha used her semblance to rip out the nails in the staircase, followed by Nora kicking it down and preventing their pursuers from following them. Once the thick wooden doors were slammed shut, Ren slid a stripped branch he tore off a nearby tree through the handles, pinning it in place.

"That's not going to hold them for long," Ren noted, and true to his word, the sounds of the cultists started to leak from underground.

"Assuming that's the only exit," Velma added, her eyes focused on the seemingly impenetrable fog surrounding them.

"Penny, what are you seeing?" Jaune asked as Penny's eyes glowed a bright green before returning to normal.

"I can't see anything past this fog," Penny revealed, "and I can't contact the Watchtower, either."

"Watchtower? You mean-?" Daphne began to say, only for Velma to cut her off.

"They're part of the Justice League, Daphne. The new arrivals from Remnant who helped take down Trigon last Halloween," Velma revealed as she focused her attention squarely on Jaune and his team. "I imagine that your friends are the other four, aren't they?"

Seeing as they had far more important things to deal with, Jaune nodded affirmatively before saying, "And I get the sense you're more than just mystery solvers, aren't you?"

"We've had our fair share of strange experiences," Velma confirmed before turning her attention back towards the fog. "But we can share stories when we're out of here."

"Agreed," Fred said as he began to lead them back towards the mansion where the Mystery Machine was parked. "Shaggy and Scooby are somewhere around here. We just gotta—"

Fred was interrupted by a horrible roar, catching his and everyone's attention. Their heads shot towards the source, where they saw a monstrous thing bounding towards them. At first, Jaune thought it was a Grimm, but it was something else. Something that, even when illuminated by the moonlight shining through the fog, he was unable to describe as anything other than a bulbous blob with legs and a thousand eyes.

"It's a shoggoth!" Velma yelled as Team JNPR placed themselves in front of the civilians, with Penny already preparing to blast it with her Maiden magic.

Before she or the other Remnantians could do anything, however, the shoggoth was suddenly silhouetted by twin beams of light, followed by the Mystery Machine running it over from behind. The antique van skidded to a stop right in front of them, and the side door opened to reveal Shaggy already inside.

"Like, get in, man!" Shaggy screamed. Not needing to be told twice, the others piled into the vehicle, with Penny making sure to hold onto Mr. Blackman. Once they were all on-board, Shaggy slammed the door shut, then yelled, "Step on it, Scoob!"

"Rokay!" Scooby yelled back from the driver's seat, much to Jaune's surprise. When Scooby started to expertly maneuver the Mystery Machine through the forest and back onto the road, he was half-tempted to call attention to it. But the rest simply accepted it. Scooby-Doo could already talk like a human, so being able to drive wasn't much more of a stretch. Ren, meanwhile, had this blank look in his eyes as he stared at the canine, while Nora's were sparkling with glee despite the overall terrible situation they found themselves in.

Soon, Scooby drove the Mystery Machine deep into the fog, with Jaune and the others already having their scrolls and phones out to call for backup. But when they exited the mist, much to their surprise and horror, they found themselves right where they previously were.

"What the…?" Shaggy whimpered as he stared out through the windshield. Scooby whimpered as well before reversing to try and get through again, only to achieve the same result.

After Scooby tried again for a third time, Velma nodded to herself and said, "I feared this would happen. Scooby, don't bother trying again. It won't work."

"Relma, rhat's roing on?" Scooby asked, his voice chattering from fear.

"This fog…it's trapping us inside the estate," Velma revealed. "It's not letting us leave. Nyarlathotep's not letting us leave."

The others in the van stared at Velma in horror as the situation they were in fully settled in their minds. As Jaune struggled to find a way out of this, Fred shook his head as he recovered first and said, "Scooby, I saw a dock at the bottom of the cliff. It should give us some shelter at least. Can you take us there?"

Scooby swallowed the lump in his throat before nodding and complying to the request. As the canine turned the Mystery Machine down a dirt path taking them to the dock, their minds raced as they struggled to figure out what to do next. At the same time, they couldn't escape the sense that something was watching them at all times. Given the threat they currently faced, Jaune wouldn't be surprised if that was actually the case.

[~]

Thankfully, they weren't accosted by any more eldritch beings nor cultists as Scooby carefully drove them down the cliffside road. Part of Jaune had been worried that they might accidentally drive over the cliff and fall into the churning water below, but thankfully Scooby was able to get them down without much issue. True to Fred's word, there had been a dock constructed at the bottom of the path, itself modeled after what Jaune could only assume was a common style back in Lovecraft's day. A long wooden pier stretched out a few dozen yards into the bay. On the left of it was an old boathouse, the windows too foggy to see what was inside. The other was bare, allowing the foamy sea water to crash into it unimpeded.

"Park in there, Scoob," Fred ordered as he pointed to the back of the boathouse, which had a shed behind it large enough to hold them.

The Great Dane grunted in acknowledgement, briefly stopping to let Fred and Jaune out so they could open the shed doors. A loud creak could be heard as the wooden doors were pulled aside, the headlights of the Mystery Machine illuminating the empty shed interior. Once the doors were fully open, Scooby slowly and carefully parked the van inside, followed by Jaune and Fred closing the shed doors and locking it behind them.

"Alright, gang. This should keep us safe, for now at least," Fred declared as the engine was turned off and Shaggy opened the back doors of the Mystery Machine to let them back in.

"Assuming Nyarlathotep isn't letting us think that as part of his sick game," Daphne added as she moved to a nearby window to peer outside towards the road they came in from, keeping watch for any sign of danger.

"Like, what are we going to do, man?!" Shaggy asked, his terror unmasked and plain for everyone to see. "I don't know about you, but tangling with an Old One was not what I wanted to do today!"

"Same for all of us, Shaggy," Nora remarked as she and the rest of Team JNPR pulled out their duffle bags and opened them. A moment later, she brandished Magnhild in its grenade launcher form and began loading fresh grenades into its canisters while Ren and Pyrrha slid full magazines into their weapons.

"That would've been useful up there," Velma noted, having already surmised that the superheroes had brought their weapons with them.

"Forgive us for not bringing them out earlier," Ren apologized in a sincere tone.

"None of us expected things to turn out this way," Velma replied while shaking her head. "Besides, given what Penny tried to do to him, I doubt any of your weapons would've helped much."

"What was that? Magic?" Daphne asked while looking at the gynoid. "And for that matter, what exactly are you? Velma said all of you are Remnantian, but I'm still very confused as to what's going on."

"Same goes for us, honestly," Jaune admitted as he rested the collapsed Crocea Mors against the interior wall of the Mystery Machine beside him. "We thought you were just a bunch of sleuths. But after all this, I'm less sure."

Fred nodded in acknowledgement, then turned to Velma and asked, "Before we play Twenty Questions; Velma, any luck in getting a signal?"

"Nope, can't pick up anything," the young detective denied as she went from screen to screen on her computer. "Radio, satellite, telephone, internet, nothing. All I can get is shortrange, but anything outside of this fog is completely inaccessible. I can try tapping into a landline, but I don't know if there's one around here, and even then I doubt that'll work."

As the leader of Mystery Incorporated frowned and rubbed his chin in thought, Scooby turned around in the front seat to look at them and suggested, "Rhat about Rincent Ran Rhoul?"

"Who?" Ren asked, not recognizing the name, but judging by how Shaggy and Daphne's eyes widened, they clearly did.

"Vincent Van Ghoul, that's right! Scoob, you're a genius!" Daphne declared as she turned to Shaggy and asked, "Shaggy, did you pack the crystal ball?"

"Like, already on it, man!" Shaggy replied as he had already begun digging through the Mystery Machine's storage compartment.

As the man dug through various bags of clothes, supplies, and an ungodly amount of food, Pyrrha turned to Daphne and asked, "Who's Vincent Van Ghoul?"

"He's a sorcerer we know," Daphne answered. "Remember when we talked about that one summer where it was just me, Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy while Fred and Velma were at camp?"

When Pyrrha nodded affirmatively, Daphne continued, "Well, long story short, the four of us and a friend of ours named Flim Flam were helped by Vincent when we accidentally released thirteen ghosts into the wild. It took us all summer just to get twelve of them, and we only found the thirteenth a few months ago. He would track the ghosts all over the world, and communicate to us via a crystal ball to tell us where it was."

"Meaning we might be able to get a signal out through it," Jaune finished the thought, and Daphne vigorously nodded. He then turned towards Scooby and said, "Good idea, Scooby."

"Raw, rank you," Scooby proudly replied as the canine blushed and rubbed the back of his head, momentarily forgetting the terrifying situation they were in.

When Shaggy finally produced the crystal ball from the box, itself covered by a thick blanket, he carefully laid it out on the van's floor. Uncovering it, Shaggy loudly gulped and admitted, "That summer was, like, the first time we came across actual, real-life ghosts. It was terrifying, and pulling this out brings back memories, man, and not good ones. But if anyone can figure out what to do, it's Vincent."

Fred nodded in agreement, then ordered, "Shaggy, see if you can't reach Vincent. Penny, that thing you did. That was magic, right?"

"That is correct," Penny confirmed and already got down to join Shaggy at the crystal ball. "I do not know if my powers can help boost the signal, but I can certainly try."

"Thank you," Fred said, then turned towards Jaune. Taking a deep breath, he continued, "Well then, until we can reach Vincent, I suppose now's as good a time as any for us to answer each other's questions. Let's start with you guys."

Figuring that everything important was out in the open anyway, Jaune answered, "It's like Velma said. My friends and I aren't from Earth. We're from Remnant, the planet that Brainiac destroyed last year. My friends and I were lucky to escape, and we've been working with the Justice League ever since."

"I already figured that part out," Velma remarked as she crossed her arms over her chest. "The bigger question is, why are you five here to begin with?"

"The Justice League noticed the disappearances and monster sightings, just like you did," Pyrrha replied. "Given the rise of Grimm activity around the world, they thought it might've been them, and so we were sent to investigate. We teleported in and ran into you guys immediately by complete accident."

"Which raises the next question," Velma pointed out as she looked at Penny.

Knowing where this was going, Penny looked up, her eyes sporting twin, green flames out of the sides, and admitted, "I am also from Remnant, but unlike my friends, I am not human. I am an android created by my father, Doctor Pietro Polendina, and capable of wielding aura like others from my planet."

Velma's eyebrows raised, and the young woman clearly wanted to ask for more specifics, only for Shaggy to interject and say, "Wait a minute. Like, when Scoob said you had never eaten anything, that meant…?"

"I am indeed incapable of digesting organic matter, Norville," Penny confirmed. "When Scooby noticed, I was actually afraid our cover was blown."

Both Scooby and Shaggy looked at Penny with wide eyes, then both of their faces fell, and Shaggy gently reached out to grab her shoulder and said, with complete sincerity, "You poor girl."

"Rats rut I red! Rhe's rever reaten rood," Scooby added, the canine on the verge of outright tears, which caused the rest of Mystery Incorporated to openly roll their eyes.

Penny was confused for a moment, then shook her head and said, "No, no, it is perfectly fine. I told Victor not to trouble himself with all those systems when he offered."

"She-, she doesn't know what she's missing…," Shaggy sadly muttered, completely focused on the fact that the girl in front of him had never tasted food in her life.

"Shaggy, Scooby, focus," Fred interjected, moving the conversation back on topic. Turning his head towards Penny, he asked, "Your magic, then. Was that part of your design, or something else?"

Penny shook her head and admitted, "While magic did exist on Remnant, it was actually unknown to most of its people."

"We didn't even know," Nora confirmed. "Until Penny, Ruby's uncle, and Weiss's mother and younger brother were rescued, we thought only Earth had magic."

"Correct," Penny confirmed. "When I was captured by Brainiac, I was imprisoned with an elderly woman named Fria. She was one of four women on Remnant called Maidens, each of whom wielded tremendous elemental magic. The power of the Maidens pass from woman to woman when the current wielder dies, depending on whoever they thought of last. Fria was the Winter Maiden, and when she passed away helping me escape, the powers passed on to me."

Daphne's face fell, as did the rest of Mystery Inc as the true nature of how Penny got her powers came to light. Deciding not to press on that sensitive subject, Daphne asked, "That means you're the Winter Maiden, then. Does that mean you only do ice magic, or can you do other things like Zatanna or Doctor Fate?"

"I have been receiving training from them, but as far as we can tell, the Maiden powers are far simpler than Earth magic. All I have been able to do so far is replicate what Dust can do on a grander scale," Penny clarified.

"Right, the crystals that powered Remnant's civilization. I remember reading about that."

"Be that as it may, you're still our biggest gun," Fred pointed out as he shook his head. Looking at Jaune, he added, "I suppose you all have your questions, too."

"We do, especially with what Nyarlathotep said about you being from a different universe," Jaune admitted. "What did he mean by that?"

"Right, right. Figured you'd ask about that first," Fred said, then released a sigh. "Before we begin, are you guys aware of the Flashpoint Paradox?"

"We are. How do you know about it?" Nora asked, raising an eyebrow and tilting her head.

"Oh, we're friends with Barry," Shaggy admitted as he kept rotating the crystal ball like he was adjusting a satellite dish.

Nora was quiet for a moment, then flatly replied, "Are you telling me that you guys know the Justice League well enough to know their secret identities?"

"Like, we're provisional members," Shaggy revealed, quickly brandishing an ID card that Nora looked at blankly.

A pregnant pause followed the revelation, only broken when Nora stated, "Okay, so trying to keep our identities secret was a complete waste of time, no big deal. Let's move on."

"Yes, let's," Jaune agreed, not wanting to dwell on how things might've turned out had they not tried so hard to maintain their secrecy.

"Right," Fred added, then continued, "My friends and I aren't from this universe. Our home timeline didn't have the Justice League. We had superheroes, like the Blue Falcon, but the Justice League didn't exist outside of comic books. My friends and I lived in Crystal Cove, and we would go around solving mysteries. Eventually, we started uncovering this big conspiracy involving a cursed treasure that people had been trying to find and destroying their lives over for centuries."

"Trapped inside that treasure was a formless, interdimensional being called an Annunaki," Velma picked up. "While most simply inhabited the bodies of animals and aided humanity, one was pure evil and sought nothing but destruction. It was trapped inside a crystal sarcophagus hidden in Crystal Cove, and it had been manipulating countless teams of mystery solvers, each accompanied by a talking animal descendent of the Annunaki, into finding and releasing it. Despite our best efforts, a talking parrot named Professor Pericles succeeded in releasing the Evil Entity from its prison, and it took over the world and began to consume it."

"At least until we managed to kill the thing," Daphne revealed, leaning forward as she kept her face stern and focused. "When it died, its hold over the world caused it to reset. It just so happened that this was at the exact same 'moment' as the Flashpoint Paradox, which brought our world into this one. Eventually, we remembered our previous lives, but like Barry, we have our memories from both universes now."

Jaune scrunched up his face at the unsettling implications of what his newfound friends were telling him. Not just at the fact that they dealt with such a powerful being before, but also that they were the victims of a universal reset they indirectly had a hand in causing. Part of him wondered at the exact nature of how that worked. Did the old Mystery Inc die when that happened, or did the souls of the new Mystery Inc get overridden by the old? It was a disturbing thought, one he supposed they, just like Barry, didn't like to dwell on, so neither would he.

"Anyway, different timeline or not, we still wanted to solve mysteries," Fred admitted. "It's what we love, after all, and that's what we've been doing ever since we could. At first, it was just a bunch of guys in masks like before. But, over time, we started dealing with actual supernatural threats. Ghosts, monsters, you name it."

"Yeah, and each time they show up, they're terrifying," Shaggy declared, then corrected, "Except the Ghoul School. Those girls are nice, and we keep up on Facebook."

"…The Ghoul School?" Ren couldn't help but ask.

"Like, Scooby, Scrappy and I accidentally spent a summer being teachers at an all-monster girls boarding school. It was scary at first, but they were so nice and we got used to it. Here's a picture of us!"

"…Aww," Nora cooed as Shaggy proudly showed a picture of himself, Scooby, and Scrappy with a bunch of young monster girls holding up a volleyball trophy.

Jaune couldn't help but agree that it was a nice, heartwarming picture, but they had to worry about more pressing matters at the moment, so he continued, "So this really isn't the first time you've dealt with the supernatural before."

"No, it's not. It's rare, but at this point it's not unexpected. Except when it turns out to be something of this scale," Velma confirmed. "It's part of the reason why Shaggy and Scooby are so scared all the time."

"Yeah," Shaggy solemnly agreed as his fear started coming back up. "Like, even if most of the monsters are just greedy old men wanting to make a quick buck, until that mask is pulled, I don't know if that's the case this time or not."

Despite all of his previous frustrations with Shaggy and Scooby's behavior, Ren adopted a more sympathetic expression as he looked at them. It was one thing to be constantly scared of guys in admittedly high quality rubber masks while treating them like they were the real thing. But it was something else entirely when one has actual experience dealing with the supernatural. Ren honestly couldn't blame them, even if he wished they would tone it down somewhat.

Before anyone could say anything else, the crystal ball suddenly glowed a bright neon green as it came to life. Shaggy and Penny cheered victoriously, and a moment later the face of a middle-aged man with greying hair on the sides of his head and a neatly trimmed moustache appeared in the center of the crystal ball.

"Shaggy! Thank goodness you and your friends are alright!" Vincent Van Ghoul's voice came through the crystal ball, causing everyone to sigh in relief.

"Vincent, all of us are stuck here and we can't get out," Daphne revealed, and Vincent's head frowned before nodding.

"I'm aware. All of us are," Vincent replied. "When that miasmic fog enshrouded the estate you're in, my divinization array went absolutely haywire. One moment, I could watch what you and your friends were doing with complete clarity. The next, nothing. I feared you might've perished."

"Not yet, unless Nyarlathotep has anything to say about it," Fred said, causing Vincent's eyes to widen.

"Nyarlathotep? He's behind this?" Vincent asked. Part of Jaune wanted to bring attention to the fact that the sorcerer somehow knew the eldritch abomination was actually real, but the rest simply rolled with it.

"Yes, he's reestablished a local Lovecraft cult and they're trying to summon Cthulhu," Daphne clarified.

"Merlin's balls…," Vincent cursed before shaking his head. "Are you able to get out?"

"No, we tried," Pyrrha answered. "Whenever we drove through the fog, we wound up exactly where we were before."

"I was afraid of that," Vincent said. "From what I've been told, the Justice League Dark are having the same exact problem getting in. The city's being evacuated as we speak while they work to pierce the veil, but it's going to take time. Time you might not have. I suspect the only reason why we're even having this conversation in the first place is because Nyarlathotep is allowing it."

"We got that sense, too," Penny admitted before Mr. Blackman's unintelligible blubbering caught everyone's attention. Seeing as how Vincent Van Ghoul was looking at the man with pitying eyes, she asked, "He did not have the protection we did. Can you help him?"

"I'm afraid I can't with this fog and at this range, child. I may be the world's greatest sorcerer, but even I have limits," Vincent sadly answered, only for Nora to raise an eyebrow.

"I thought Doctor Fate was the world's greatest sorcerer?" she earnestly asked, only to be taken aback by the snarl that ripped across Vincent's face.

"The only reason why Dr. Kent Nelson 'holds' that title is because he wields the Helm of Nabu, which in my eyes is cheating!" Vincent insisted, clearly jealous at his peer. The sorcerer took a few deep breaths to calm himself, then continued, "Anyway, until that barrier is broken, there isn't anything I can do. None of us can. You're on your own."

Fred and Jaune frowned as they looked at each other while Shaggy and Scooby whimpered. After a moment of heavy silence, Penny declared, "There must be something we can do. If Nyarlathotep succeeds in summoning Cthulhu, who knows how many people will be hurt."

"Like, can we even do anything to stop him?" Shaggy asked as he desperately looked around the van for answers. "Penny hit that guy with a boatload of magic and he laughed it off like it was nothing!"

"I suspect there isn't anything you can do to him, not directly at least," Vincent sullenly admitted, causing Jaune's heartbeat to quicken. The situation he found himself and his friends in reminded him of when they had to deal with Mr. Mxyzptlk. But at the end of the day, the fifth-dimensional imp was just a nuisance having fun. Nyarlathotep was a genuinely malevolent being who actively wished them and others harm.

That was when Velma's eyes widened, and she muttered to herself, "Wait a minute…."

Catching everyone's attention, they turned to face her and Fred asked, "Got something, Velma?"

Velma tentatively nodded as she turned around in her chair back towards her computer and began typing while explaining, "Maybe. I'm pulling up the local copy of the database just to make sure… Bingo, there it is. According to Nyarlathotep, Lovecraft was inspired to write his horror stories from the nightmares he received from them. Cthulhu was first described in his short story The Call of Cthulhu. In it, when Cthulhu was risen from the city of R'lyeh, he entered a brief period of vulnerability that allowed the main character to ram him with a steamboat, driving Cthulhu back and trapping him in the city once again."

"Okay, while that's fascinating, what does that have to do with this?" Ren asked as he and the others crowded behind Velma, with Shaggy holding up Vincent's crystal ball.

"Despite his glaring issues, Lovecraft right now is our foremost expert on the beings he wrote about," Velma pointed out. "Given how his literal inspiration told us how he came up with his ideas to taunt us, it's better than nothing. He may have even been trying to warn people the best way he could think of. The point is, Cthulhu is momentarily weak enough to be driven back at the moment of his arrival into our world. We can exploit that, maybe."

Everyone was quiet for a moment, then Shaggy all-too-calmly asked, "Velma, are you suggesting that we let Nyarlathotep summon Cthulhu?"

"I'm saying we don't have a choice in the matter," she clarified. "With that fog up, we're not getting any help anytime soon. By the time it falls, it'll be too late, so we have to do what we can on our own and take whatever advantage we can get."

"Hmm, Miss Dinkley's logic is sound, as per usual," Vincent admitted, "but that does raise the issue of where you would find a boat to ram the Great Old One with."

"Given what this place is and who ran it, I wouldn't be surprised if that boathouse has an actual steamboat in it," Velma pointed out, causing the others to look out the window towards the boathouse in question.

Glancing at each other and not saying a word, both Fred and Jaune immediately made their way out of the shed and towards the boathouse, Jaune carrying Crocea Mors just in case. The door was locked, but with his aura-enhanced strength, Jaune was able to tear it down with little effort. True to Velma's word, an old steamboat that looked straight out of the 1920s was docked, waiting to be let out to sea.

"Okay, so we got a boat," Fred declared. "If we time it right, and assuming Lovecraft was telling the truth, we could ram Cthulhu with it."

"But what about Nyarlathotep? He's not just going to let us do this. Once he figures out we have a plan, he's going to act," Nora pointed out.

"We're going to have to delay him and his forces for as long as possible," Jaune answered. "The cultists and monsters I'm not worried about. But Nyarlathotep…I don't think there is anything we can do against him."

"…There may be one thing. Daphne, do you still have the Chest of Demons with you?" Vincent asked, to which Daphne nodded.

"Yes, but that only worked on the Thirteen Ghosts," Daphne pointed out as Shaggy exerted himself to lift the heavy box out from where it was stored.

The box itself was the size of Jaune's chest, made up of red-painted wooden boards and thick iron bands around the seams and edges. Displayed on the lid was a large, green eyed, horned skull, with two handles on the sides shaped like human femurs. As Jaune stared at the box, he couldn't help but get a foreboding feeling about it, a sentiment that seemed to be shared with the rest of his friends and Mystery Incorporated.

"The Chest of Demons can trap most demonic and otherworldly beings in the Tenth Circle of Hell," Vincent clarified. "While it might not be powerful enough on its own to trap Nyarlathotep, it might delay him long enough for the Justice League Dark to break through."

Slowly but surely, a plan seemed to be coming together, and they all looked at each other. After a moment, Fred steeled his gaze, then he said, "Alright, gang, here's what we're going to do. Shaggy, Scooby, I want you two to start working on getting that steamboat up and running."

Despite clearly being terrified, both of them nodded in agreement, with Shaggy adding, "Looks like your electrical engineering degree is finally going to come in handy, Scoob."

"Rinally," Scooby immediately replied.

"…Every time I learn something new about you, Scooby, I just love you even more," Nora declared while Ren looked half ready to have an aneurysm.

Nodding at Fred, Jaune added, "Ren, Nora, you two help them out."

"You got it, fearless leader!" Nora declared as she gave a crisp salute while Fred and Daphne began moving to the trunk.

"Velma, you stay here and coordinate everything," Fred said as he pulled out a bag full of recording equipment. "We'll place cameras and radios around the area, so you let us know when and where they're coming from."

"Just make sure you don't bunch them all up in one place, and try to avoid any blind spots," Velma insisted, and Fred nodded in agreement while Daphne pulled out a long metal rod that she could use as a bo staff.

"Pyrrha, you stick with Daphne and keep an eye out for anyone getting close," Jaune said, and as Daphne nodded, Jaune turned to Fred and added, "Fred and I, meanwhile, are going to make a trap."

"You just read my mind, Jaune," Fred declared as he pulled out a long case, opened it, and brandished a pump-action shotgun that he immediately proceeded to load a few shells in and dramatically cock. With everyone staring at him, Fred's composure faltered and he asked, "What?"

"Freddy, why do you have a shotgun?" Daphne asked, echoing everyone else's thoughts.

"When did you get a shotgun?" Velma added.

"Was that here, like, the whole time?" Shaggy finished.

Fred stammered for a moment, then he answered, "Come on, guys. I got it after Moonscar Island."

"Ooh, that makes sense," the other members of Mystery Incorporated replied before moving to perform their tasks.

Looking around at everyone, Nora asked, "What happened on Moonscar Island?"

"Zombies and evil cat ladies," Shaggy immediately answered.

"…By evil cat ladies, do you mean they turned into cats or they just had a lot of cats?"

"Res," Scooby clarified.

"…I want your lives. Can I have them?"

"Ro."

"Aww…."

[~]

"Rora, rench," Scooby requested as he held out his paw facing upward, his head deep into the engine compartment of the steamboat.

"Here," Nora replied as she handed him the tool. Scooby grunted in thanks as he started loosening some bolts. When he was finished, he handed the wrench back to Nora and requested some pliers, which she immediately provided.

It had been like this for quite some time now. She didn't know just how long they had been working. No more than an hour at most, the bulk of which had been spent with Ren helping Scooby and Shaggy restore the steamboat to working condition. While the vessel certainly looked seaworthy at first glance, it clearly wasn't made with the intention of actually going out into the water. Corners had been cut, with cheap building materials, faulty wiring, and a plethora of other issues that Nora couldn't even begin to describe. If it weren't for the fact that they needed this thing for Velma's plan to work, she wouldn't dare let it go out into the water. She imagined that Mr. Blackman viewed this as more of a prop rather than a functional steamboat. He likely wanted to have a proper ship, but couldn't due to a lack of funds and had to make do.

Either way, all they needed was for the steamboat to last for one voyage. One that would end with them ramming it into Cthulhu's belly. Despite how seemingly overwhelming the odds were stacked against them, Nora couldn't help but feel excited. How many times could a girl say that they got to run over an evil god? Sure, she wouldn't be piloting the steamboat. That honor went to Shaggy and Scooby while she and Ren would help the others deal with Nyarlathotep and his cultists. But she could say that she helped, and that was fine with her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ren working with Shaggy at the helm, making sure that they'd be able to pilot this hunk of bolts in the first place. When Ren glanced back up at her, she hastily looked away in favor of focusing on her own electrical panel. Even with her back turned to her boyfriend, she could feel his eyes on her before he sadly looked away. It had been like this ever since Ren's blow up back in the mansion. It didn't matter that they were now dealing with an actual, legitimate threat. His behavior, both today and over the past several weeks, wasn't suddenly excused because of it. Ren had crossed the line, and she wanted him to know just how upset she still was with the way he acted.

"Rora, rou rokay?" Scooby quietly asked as he poked his head out from inside the ship's hull.

For a moment, Nora considered telling the Great Dane that she was. Instead, she hung her head, sighed, and admitted, "I don't know, Scooby."

"Ris it Ren?"

"That obvious, huh?" Nora mirthlessly chuckled as she put wires in the appropriate places. "It's just…I've been with Ren pretty much my entire life. Kinda like you and Shaggy, really. But it's never been this bad. He's not the only one taking what we're doing seriously, and he had no right to lash out at you two like that. I don't know what to do, Scooby."

Scooby nodded at that, then sagely replied, "Rell, Raggy and I rave rought refore. All rends do. Rometimes re rought for reeks."

"That's not making me feel better, Scoob."

"Ret me rinish." Scooby held up his paw sagely. "Renever we rought, rhile we rould rake up, rat only rappened ren we rixed rat rarted the right rin the rirst race. Runtil ren, rimply raying 'rorry' rasn't enough."

"…So you're saying I shouldn't forgive him?" Nora asked while raising an eyebrow, but Scooby shook his head.

"Ro, ro. I'm raying rat rou and Ren rust rix rat rarted the right, or rit will rappen again."

Nora pursed her lips in thought, quickly realizing that Scooby had a point. While she knew she and Ren would inevitably make up, probably by the time the day was over, that didn't mean the fundamental, underlying issues that caused the fight in the first place would suddenly disappear. Simply slapping a band-aid over it and calling it a day would only mean that it would happen again. It might not be today, nor tomorrow, nor even months from now. But it would inevitably spring back up, and when that happened, it might be even worse than it was now.

She thought back to when it all started, which wasn't hard. Ever since she was almost killed by Black Adam, Ren had been pushing himself harder and harder than he ever had before. Not only that, he'd been holding himself to an impossible standard, and whenever someone inevitably didn't reach that same standard, he started looking down on them. While it was most apparent today with Shaggy and Scooby, she knew he was starting to look at the rest of their friends the same way during their off days. She got the sense that, if Ren had his way, they wouldn't be relaxing at all, which simply wasn't healthy nor sustainable.

Slowly, Nora got a sense of what she needed to do. Of what they needed to do. It would hurt, but if they wanted to solve this problem, she supposed it might be the only way to do it.

"Thank you, Scooby. I think I needed to hear that," Nora replied as she smiled at her companion, who smiled as well.

She turned to look back at Ren and Shaggy, who were in the midst of their own conversation, and got the sense that they were speaking along the same lines she and Scooby were. But her and Ren's relationship troubles could be worked out later. For now, they needed to get this boat in the water, and so she redoubled her efforts.

[~]

Back outside, on the top of the cliff, Jaune, Fred, Pyrrha and Daphne worked to lay the trap. Ropes were tied to branches and pulled back, pitfalls dug out and covered with leaves, and cameras placed with overlapping fields of view in strategic places. As they worked, they could feel a thousand eyes staring at them hungrily, and they could almost feel the amusement in them. If Jaune had to guess, Nyarlathotep could see exactly what they were doing, and was going to wait to attack until they were as ready as they possibly could be. That way their 'inevitable' defeat would be all the sweeter to him.

The thought made his stomach churn, but Jaune pressed on. Besides, he knew they had one ace up their sleeves: the Chest of Demons. Thanks to some magical wards that Van Ghoul had given Mystery Incorporated years prior, it should obscure its presence from the Old One. As far as Nyarlathotep knew, the box they placed in the center pit of their trap was just a normal, mundane box and nothing more. If he knew better, he likely wouldn't have waited this long to press the attack.

"Jaune, the boat's ready," Ren announced over the short-range radio. "Want us to come back up and join you?"

"No, stay with Shaggy and Scooby. Last thing I want is to send those two out into the water unprotected," Jaune replied as he helped Fred pull back a particularly large branch, his muscles straining under the duress.

"Velma, how're the cameras looking?" Fred asked through tired breaths.

"The quality's terrible, but it'll work," Velma answered. "I'm already seeing movement at the edges. I imagine it won't be long now."

"Right." Jaune nodded as they finished pulling the branch back, allowing Fred to let go and tie it to the ground via a post. When someone tripped the rope, the branch would swing outward, sending the victim flying back into a strategically placed net. It was but one of many traps they had laid, and he hoped it would be enough.

"Fred," Jaune spoke up as Fred finished, "when the fighting starts, let Pyrrha, Penny and I handle most of it. The last thing I want is for you guys to get hurt, and we can deal with danger a lot more than you can. No offense."

"None taken, but don't worry. We can handle ourselves just fine," Fred pointed out as he confidently smiled. "This isn't our first rodeo, remember?"

Jaune couldn't help but chuckle as he nodded and said, "Yeah, I know."

Fred nodded back, then their radio blared to life as Velma called out, "Guys, they're coming!"

Snapping into focus, Fred replied, "Places, people! Shaggy, Scooby, get that boat in the water!"

"Like, on it, man!" Shaggy shouted through the radio, prompting Jaune to run to the cliff's edge and look down towards the water. True enough, Jaune could see the steamboat slowly moving out from the boathouse into the bay. If he squinted, he could just barely make out Ren and Nora taking defensive positions along the sides of the vessel, with Shaggy and Scooby piloting it from the bridge.

"Jaune, look. The fog…," Pyrrha muttered next to him.

Steeling his gaze, Jaune looked at the dome of miasma enshrouding them, and saw that it had begun to change color. The shade was one he couldn't quite describe; a color out of space itself. Looking at it gave him a migraine, but thanks to Raven's protection, that was all it did. More important than the color, though, was what it most likely meant: Nyarlathotep had started to summon Cthulhu.

"Velma, how many are there?" Jaune asked, turning his attention towards the forest in front of him as he and Pyrrha protectively placed themselves in front of Fred and Daphne, with Penny floating over the group.

Velma was silent at first, then she replied, "Too many."

Nothing more needed to be said, and soon they started to hear a cacophony of roars, growls, and other sounds that they couldn't describe. The trees around them were rustling as the wind picked up speed. Before long, they could hear thunderous footsteps as things started running towards them. But Jaune and his friends didn't waver, instead standing their ground with their backs facing the cliffside. He unsheathed Crocea Mors, its Nth metal blade glistening under the light of the lamps they had placed on the nearby trees. Pyrrha and Fred flicked the safeties off their weapons, with Daphne twirling her staff before resting it against her back.

"Well, whatever happens, it's been an honor," Daphne declared as the bushes in front of them shook fervently.

"The honor was all ours," Pyrrha replied.

That was when the first cultists exploded out from the bushes, brandishing weapons and chanting in tongues. They immediately made a beeline towards the young heroes, fully intending to do harm, only to fall right through the first line of traps as they stepped over the pitfalls. As their compatriots fell into the deep pits and got trapped, the others momentarily paused, giving Pyrrha and Penny an opening they ruthlessly exploited.

[~]

"Get off!" Nora shouted as she swung Magnhild in an upward swing into a Deep One. An actual Deep One, not a man wearing a rubber costume. As it turned out, Jaune's fears were quite accurate.

The hammerhead impacted directly against the fish-man's skull, resulting in a loud crack and sending the eldritch creature flying back into the ocean. It skipped on the churning waves a few times like a rock before sinking into the depths, but Nora couldn't focus on it for long as two others emerged from the sea. They attempted to climb onto the steamboat, but Nora was already hitting them back, much like she had been doing ever since they entered open water. On the other side of the steamboat, Ren was firing Stormflower at the trespassers, the bullets puncturing through their leathery skin and leaving pools of black ichor on top of the water.

As a particularly heavy wave crashed into them, nearly throwing Nora off her feet, she yelled, "Shaggy, keep her steady!"

"I'm trying, man!" Shaggy yelled from the helm.

Glancing upward, Nora saw a terrified yet determined Shaggy Rogers steering the ship, making large turns of the wheel to break into whatever waves came their way rather than let the waves hit them from the side. Scooby was on the roof, shivering from fear yet guiding Shaggy to their goal, nonetheless. If bravery was standing tall in spite of fear, than those two were the picture examples of it in her opinion.

Nora then turned her attention towards the front of the ship, where she could see an ominous glow coming from the ocean. The clouds swirled above it, and it didn't take much to figure out that was where Cthulhu was rising. And they were heading straight towards it. She couldn't lie to herself and say that she wasn't nervous. But that wasn't going to stop them from ramming this boat right into Cthulhu's fat belly.

Until then, she had to occupy herself by playing Whack-A-Fish with any Deep One that dared to climb aboard. They might not be Grimm, but it was still fun to send them flying. In the distance, she could just barely hear the sound of gunfire as the rest of her friends fended off Nyarlathotep's main forces, and she could even see flashes of Penny's magic cutting through the darkness. She hoped they were alright, but as much as she wanted to help, there wasn't anything she could do from here.

"Rora, right ride!" Scooby called out in warning while stretching out his paw, prompting Nora to divert her attention.

True to his word, she saw a large disturbance in the water as several Deep Ones swam straight towards them. Shifting Magnhild into its grenade launcher form, she began firing into the swarm. Each explosion sent a plume of black ichor and sea spray into the air, but there was simply too many. Before long, several leapt out of the water and landed on the deck, too close and too many for her hammer to be as effective as before. Rather than be discouraged, Nora instead smirked as she collapsed and stowed her weapon behind her back before pulling out her backup weapons.

"Congrats, boys! You get to help me break in Hjerteslag!" Nora declared as she fully extended the pair of segmented tonfas. If she'd had time to put on her suit, she could've connected her weapons to its internal power supply to fuel their ranged form. But as the heart-shaped profiles of the tonfa split at the ends with a lightning-shaped crack down the middle, and each segmented into two prongs with the rapid crackle of sparks arcing between them, she decided this was the more fun way to do it.

Releasing a wordless yell, Nora leapt forward, slamming the electrified end of her right tonfa into the face of the nearest Deep One, sending a powerful shock coursing through its muscles. When the next nearest monster tried to capitalize on the apparent opening, Nora heard Ren call out her name in panicked warning.

She was ready, though, and parried the incoming swipe with a windmill spin of her left weapon, which she followed through to smack her fishy assailant back and forth across the face in quick succession. As the discombobulated Deep One tried to recover she flipped that tonfa up in a jaunty toss to catch it by the end, uncaring of her electrified grasp as she brought the handle down on its head like a hammer.

Happy that the tonfa's built-in batteries were packing just as much oomph as intended so far, Nora let her two latest victims drop twitching to the deck. Letting loose a bloodthirsty grin which somehow seemed even toothier than the Deep Ones' own craggy maws, much to their obvious distress, the lightning-driven girl proceeded to lay about with a furious flurry of swings and punches, laughing all the way.

[~]

As Jaune stabbed the nearest shoggoth through the top of the head, he immediately moved to the next opponent, a cultist who had managed to evade their traps thus far, and struck him with the front of his shield. The aura-enhanced blow sent the man flying into a nearby net, snaring him completely. Another eldritch abomination, an Elder Thing according to Velma, attempted to swoop down from above, but a shotgun blast courtesy of Fred felled the foul creature. The rest of the flock was electrocuted by Penny with her lightning magic, causing their charred corpses to fall to the ground lifelessly. On the other side of the small clearing they were fighting in, Pyrrha was tossing her shield into different opponents, ricocheting between them while using her spear to trip or stab into anyone who got too close. Daphne was right behind her, keeping the cultists distracted and allowing Pyrrha to deal with the far more threatening monsters assailing them.

Despite the fact that he and his friends were fighting with their backs facing the cliffside, overall Jaune felt that the battle was going rather well, all things considered. His and Fred's traps took out the bulk of the cultists, trapping them in nets, pits, and more. Watching them get struck by branches and sent flying into nets, their ankles snared and stringing them uselessly upside down, or simply having weighted nets fall on top of them, was very amusing in Jaune's opinion. Despite how intimidating they tried to be, in all honesty they were more nuisances at best.

The abominations, on the other hand, were the more pressing and legitimate issue, taking the bulk of the Remnantians' attention. Shoggoths made up the bulk of Nyarlathotep's forces, backed up by actual Deep Ones who had climbed up the cliff from the sea below, Elder Things attacking from the air, and a bunch of others that Jaune couldn't even begin to describe. Velma had needed to relocate the Mystery Machine to a more secure location when the Deep Ones started arriving, and every so often he'd see her driving the van around, its headlights cutting through the darkness. A few times she had even run over some creatures in an effort to contribute more than just pointing out which direction their foes were coming from.

Still, despite the overwhelming numbers, they were holding their own so far. Jaune didn't even want to think about what would've happened had Penny not been with them. While he had the utmost confidence in his teammates, her magic was probably the only real reason why they were holding out as well as they have. Without it, things would've gone a lot worse. That much was obvious to everyone.

"Velma, how many are left?" Daphne asked as she struck her pole against the side of a cultist's head, while Pyrrha repeatedly stabbed and shot a Deep One with Miló resting atop one of Akoúo̱'s grooves.

"Not much, maybe a dozen," Velma revealed, with the Mystery Machine coming up from the cliffside and parking behind them.

Sure enough, Jaune could only see a handful of enemies still trying to engage them, mostly cultists with a pair of shoggoths that Penny promptly froze. Had the cultists' minds not been utterly warped by their devotion to their master, he suspected they would've run by now. But they remained in a futile, desperate attempt to stop the heroes from enacting their plan. Putting them down wasn't too difficult. Just a few blows to their heads or legs and they were out for the count. Fred was even tossing bolos to ensnare some of them. Within a minute, the remains of Nyarlathotep's forces were routed, leaving only them standing.

That didn't mean Jaune could relax, though. After all, he and everyone knew what was coming next.

None of them said a word as they waited, checking their weapons and darting their eyes in every direction. All they could hear was the sound of crickets chirping, owls hooting, and the wind rustling through the trees. Then everything went silent. A heavy, unnatural presence fell over the area, and despite himself, Jaune felt his heart practically leap into his throat. The world in front of him seemed to stretch into infinity, filled with angles that just did not belong.

"Well done, children. Well done, indeed," Nyarlathotep said in a silky smooth voice that also felt like listening to nails on a chalkboard.

The eldritch deity soon emerged from the shows, his body fully illuminated by the mounted lights. Yet Jaune couldn't make out any of his features, the being's skin being formed from an imperceivable shade of vantablack. All he could make out was the white sclera of his eyes, which only served to further illustrate just how utterly wrong he was.

"And yet, ultimately futile," Nyarlathotep mocked, not caring in the slightest at all the weapons pointed right towards him. "Of course, you defeating the cultists and monsters at my disposal was never in doubt."

"Spare the flattery, we've heard it before," Velma declared as she stepped out from inside the Mystery Machine, to which Nyarlathotep smiled, revealing his bone-white teeth that sent shivers down Jaune's spine.

"That you have, in more ways than one," he cryptically replied. "Still, as fun as it was to watch you struggle, I'm afraid our little game has come to an end. You must have known it was inevitable."

"Perhaps," Penny remarked. "But my friend and I are going to stop you."

"You will certainly try, but you will fail."

"If I had a nickel for every time somebody told me that, I'd have so many nickels," Velma retorted while rolling her eyes, speaking for all of them. She then pointed her finger at Nyarlathotep and said, "How about this: you make this easier on all of us and just surrender right now. We already know what you're planning, and so do our friends on the outside. You've lost, you're just too arrogant to see it."

"Story of our lives," Fred muttered under his breath, to which Jaune couldn't help but nod in agreement.

Rather than get angry, Nyarlathotep merely chuckled as he said, "You don't think I already know that? Even now, I can sense the efforts of your Justice League allies trying to get in. It doesn't matter if they know what my plans are. By the time they manage to break it down, Cthulhu will rise once again, and your friends on that little boat will perish."

Jaune ground his teeth together at the threat, but bit his tongue. Nyarlathotep was clearly trying to get a rise out of them, and he wasn't going to give him that satisfaction.

"What you fail to realize is that your efforts to resist are in vain," the Crawling Chaos claimed as he walked forward, the world warping around him. "And I'm not just referring to the events of today. Your very lives are dictated by what came before. By what happened before.

"Let's take you, for example," Nyarlathotep said as he pointed towards Pyrrha, who steeled her gaze while keeping Miló pointed right at his head. "You already know that your beloved Beacon Academy was destined to fall. But did you know that there was more to the story? Something that Batman deigned to keep from you?"

Nyarlathotep smiled while leaning forward, his eyes boring into Pyrrha's. "You, Pyrrha Nikos, the Invincible Girl, weren't supposed to make it out of Beacon. You were to die, murdered by someone you thought one of your own. After you killed her."

Pyrrha could help but widen her eyes in shock when Nyarlathotep moved his gaze towards Penny, and he continued, "Speaking of, let's take you, Penny Polendina. You believe that your ascension to the Winter Maiden was mere chance and coincidence. You'd be wrong. Fria was always going to die, and you were always going to be her heir."

Penny's eyes widened as well, then she recovered and retorted, "Even if what you say is true, Pyrrha did not kill me. No one did."

"But you were dismembered by your own wires, were you not? Brought to a state that was as close to death as one could be," Nyarlathotep pointed out, catching Penny off guard as to how he could possibly know that. "That was how you were supposed to die. The first time, at least. The second, now…that was a personal favorite of mine. So…tragic, making it all the sweeter."

Nyarlathotep said that while looking right at Jaune, making it abundantly clear as to who he was referring to. Jaune and Penny looked at each other, neither of them certain as to what might have happened. It was clear that Nyarlathotep was at least knowledgeable of other universes, but to what extent he didn't know. Either way, he didn't like it.

"Call it what you will," Nyarlathotep declared. "Temporal inertia, canon events, absolute points, they all mean the same thing. Just as Krypton will always be destroyed, a Wayne will die in Crime Alley, and Beacon will fall, you cannot stop what the universe deems will happen. And on this day, I will succeed, you will die, and the world will fall to madness."

That was when an angry Pyrrha replied, "You speak of our lives like we have no real choice in what happened nor in what we do. That's where you're wrong. In an infinite multiverse, our choices matter. They always matter."

"She's right," Fred added, stepping forward while bringing his fist to his chest. "We always have a choice, and our fate is in our own hands. Certainly not yours."

Their words spurred the others on, and they launched themselves forward in a battle-ready stance. Nyarlathotep chuckled in response, taking another step forward that Velma kept a close eye on.

"By all means, keep resisting," he said as the shadows stretched and the air around him warped incomprehensibly. "There isn't anything you can do against me, and you know it."

"Maybe," Velma admitted, then held up a spare key fob while smiling conspiratorially. "But this might."

Nyarlathotep, for the first time since they saw him, seemed perplexed as to what she meant. Then she pressed a button on the fob, causing a pressurized platform hidden in a pit and covered by bits of foliage to rise upward. The Crawling Chaos' attention was immediately drawn to it, and his eyes widened in horror as he gazed upon the Chest of Demons.

"How did you…?" he numbly asked, and Velma smiled.

"Guess you're not as 'all-knowing' as you made yourself out to be," Velma mocked as Penny shot bits of fire towards small magical candles they had laid out nearby ahead of time while Pyrrha used her semblance to rip the chest open.

As the lid was raised, they could hear thirteen distinct screams coming from inside, followed by a large, ghostly hand in a dark, maroon shade emerging from the depths within. The hand shot towards Nyarlathotep, firmly grasping around the deity who struggled to break free. At the same time, the Chest of Demons attempted to pull him in, but wasn't powerful enough to do so.

"Let him have it!" Jaune ordered now that the trap was sprung, with Penny releasing an opening volley of magic from high above.

The Deep Ones just kept coming, and Ren had already run out of ammo for Stormflower. He was reduced to slicing, punching, and kicking the eldritch horrors back into the sea where they belonged. On their own, they weren't too difficult to drive off. Merely at the level of common Grimm. But just like it often was with the Grimm, their sheer numbers more than made up for that. From what he could tell in the chaos, Nora was in the same position, but unlike him, she was acting like she was having the time of her life as she freely used Hjerteslag for the first time since its creation.

The Deep Ones actually seemed scared of her.

Beyond the monsters coming up from the depths, the sea itself was turning more and more violent with each passing moment. The waves were bigger, breaking against the sides and bow of the steamboat and sending salty spray into everyone's faces. The wind howled around them as it whipped back and forth, and with each movement, the steamboat creaked. Water had begun to leak through the cracks, and it was beyond obvious at this point that the steamboat was on its last legs.

At the very least, it appeared the same could be said for their journey itself as the eldritch fog was glowing brightly in a shade he couldn't describe. The water below them shone in a similar way, the intensity growing every second, and if he focused he could almost see a shape coming up from the depths. It was incomprehensibly massive, and it wasn't difficult to guess what he was looking at.

Cthulhu was rising, and their one shot to send him back to where he belonged had come with him.

"Shaggy, Scooby, get ready!" Ren shouted up to the bridge as he sank his bayonet blades through the top of a Deep One's skull. But as he kicked its body into that of another, he heard a panicked scream.

He shot his head towards the sound and saw that it was coming from the bridge, which was now swarming with Deep Ones. Realizing they must've come up from the ship's stern, Ren sprinted towards it while Nora drew the remaining Deep Ones on the deck to her. With expert precision, Ren bounded up the posts, quickly reaching the bridge. With Stormflower drawn, he prepared to engage the abominations and protect Shaggy and Scooby.

But when he arrived, he once again found himself dead in his tracks as he watched the clearly quite terrified Shaggy, in his efforts to evade the Deep Ones, simultaneously fighting them off. He'd duck underneath a swipe of their claws, dropping to his belly in a wet slide that took their malformed legs out from under them. As he shot up to his feet, his head slammed into the underside of one's chin, knocking it out. With a panicked scream, he grabbed an outstretched arm and swung the Deep One around in a pirouette that bowled over its surrounding fellows.

No matter what the Deep Ones tried to do, they simply couldn't touch him, and somehow Shaggy was effortlessly defeating them all. With the fog and eldritch glow surrounding them, the echoes of his drawn out scream of terror sounded like a fierce battle cry, and it almost looked like a white aura was emanating out of Shaggy's body, but a quick rub of his eyes removed that effect from Ren's vision.

As the last of the Deep Ones toppled out of the bridge, Ren finally regained his composure and numbly said, "Shaggy?"

"Ren! Like, thank God you're here, man!" Shaggy cried out as he came forward.

"How did you…do that?" Ren asked, his attention firmly focused on the unconscious bodies of the fish men littering the ground.

With his teeth chattering, Shaggy admitted, "I don't know. It just happened, you know?"

"And yet you were able to fight them off…" he muttered as Nora came up from the deck to join them at the bridge.

"Apparently!" Shaggy threw up his hands. "I didn't even have time to think! My body just moved on its own!"

Ren simply stared at Shaggy as the young man took deep breaths in an effort to calm himself down. At the back of his mind, Ren thought of a martial arts concept found on both Earth and Remnant. One that claimed true martial arts masters could move their bodies without even needing to think, operating purely off of instinct and nothing more. Somehow, against all reason, Shaggy Rogers was apparently able to do that.

If it weren't for the fact that Ren had just witnessed it first-hand he wouldn't have believed that Shaggy, of all people, was able to achieve an, admittedly unorthodox, form of this instinctive state. Not only that, he got the distinct sense that this wasn't the first time this had happened. Nora was taking in the scene with awestruck eyes, both at Shaggy and also at Scooby who was currently piloting the steamboat, and all Ren could do was stare at them both.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Ren finally gave up trying to make sense of it all, threw up his hands and said, "Sure, why not?"

"Rat's the ririt, Ren," Scooby remarked, but before anyone could respond, they heard a massive roar as the sea in front of them broke.

Like a mountain emerging from the Earth's crust, a gargantuan shape pushed itself out from the depths. Saltwater cascaded down its bulbous, misshapen body, drowning out all other sounds as it cast a shadow over them all. Eight soulless eyes dispassionately took in the world, each movement of its head whipping countless tentacles, creating sounds akin to thunder. Despite everything, Ren found himself petrified, as did Shaggy and Nora.

Scooby, however, despite his clear terror, had the strength of will to keep his paws on the steering wheel. He aimed the bow of the ship towards Cthulhu's belly and cranked the engine up to full power. Cthulhu finally noticed their presence then, and he slowly raised his thick hand to crush them beneath the waves.

But as Cthulhu swung his arm downward, something else erupted out of the water. Smaller but moving as fast as a bullet, it intercepted Cthulhu's arm, knocking it back with enough force to make the eldritch god stumble back. A moment later, the shape landed on the bow of the steamboat, wearing golden and green scale armor and with a three-pronged golden trident in hand.

"Aquaman!" they all called out as the King of the Ocean looked over his shoulder to smirk at them.

"Scooby, keep this boat on course!" Aquaman ordered as he twirled his trident around him and glared at Cthulhu, who matched his gaze. He then said, "Did you think I wouldn't notice you sneaking off?!"

An enraged Cthulhu swung his other arm from the side, creating a massive wave that threatened to overturn the steamboat. But Aquaman was ready as he raised his trident overhead and swung down just as the wave was about to hit them, splitting the water clean in two. A series of underwater explosions soon followed as submerged Atlantean warships announced their arrival by bombarding the eldritch being with their weapons. Around them, Ren could hear the warbles and screeches of terrified Deep Ones getting slaughtered by the mounted oceanic beasts of Atlantean cavalry, and he saw flashes as Atlantean soldiers shot them down with their plasma rifles.

With newfound determination, Scooby growled, "Rom Rell's reart, I rab at ree."

"My man!" Aquaman proudly called out with a large smile on his face, clearly understanding the dog's words as he ran up the steps to the bridge. With their steamboat squarely aimed at Cthulhu's belly, Aquaman stared deeply into the churning ocean. A moment later, a seahorse the size of an actual horse leapt out of the water behind the stern, whinnying up to them.

"Quick, get on Storm!" Aquaman ordered, beckoning the young heroes towards the awaiting mount.

Without needing to think twice, Nora was already over the edge, diving into the water with Shaggy, Scooby, and Ren right behind her. Aquaman jumped over the edge right as the steamboat crashed into Cthulhu's belly, generating a massive explosion that sent chunks of metal and flesh in all directions. The young heroes, clinging onto Storm's neck as a lifeline, screamed as the shockwave pushed them back, but they were able to keep their hold. Cthulhu, meanwhile, released a pained roar, then slowly began to sink back into the depths from whence it came.

"Yeah, that's right! Get outta here!" Nora cried out, pumping her fist victoriously as Aquaman floated in the water beside them.

The water surrounding Cthulhu boiled as he sank beneath the waves, and only then did Ren finally notice that the fog had completely disappeared, revealing the moon shining overhead. Realizing what that must mean, he couldn't help but smile, a sentiment shared by the others in the water with them. His attention then shot back to the coast, where he could still see flashes of magic coming from the cliff like a lighthouse.

"Our friends… We need to get to them, now!" Ren declared, and Aquaman nodded.

"Don't worry, I'll get you there. Let's go, Storm!" Aquaman told his seahorse, who whinnied in response before swimming straight towards the shore at such speed that it reminded Ren of a jet ski. Water sprayed onto their faces, and Shaggy and Scooby were practically being dragged behind them, but with Aquaman swimming just as fast beside them, they were in no danger of being left behind.

Soon, they managed to return to the boat dock, Storm's momentum launching the young heroes onto solid ground. Ren and Nora were able to land firmly on their feet, with Aquaman erupting out of the water and landing in front of them. Shaggy and Scooby, on the other hand, kept going before crashing into a loose pile of ropes and boxes, half burying them in an uncomfortable looking tangle. They quickly recovered however, and they all sprinted up the cliffside road towards the top.

When they arrived, they saw Nyarlathotep firmly in the clutches of the Chest of Demons. Penny was continuing to blast the Crawling Chaos with her Maiden magic, now joined by Zatanna Zatera. Doctor Fate and John Constantine, meanwhile, had surrounded the Chest of Demons with sigils and ritual circles, boosting its power tremendously. Thick vines courtesy of Swamp Thing were keeping Nyarlathotep wrapped in place, and Jaune, Pyrrha, Fred, Daphne, and Velma were helping to keep the Chest of Demons physically open.

"No, NO!" Nyarlathotep screamed as he was dragged closer and closer to the Chest of Demons. "It wasn't supposed to end like this! I was supposed to win!"

"That's what they all say, and each time they're always wrong!" Velma retorted, unable to keep a satisfied grin off her face. "Go ahead, say it."

"AH!" Nyarlathotep finally screamed in defeat as he was dragged inside. "I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids! And your dumb dog, too!"

With one final, wordless scream of defeat, Nyarlathotep was fully dragged into the Chest of Demons. It was slammed shut behind him, and all went still and silent. Everyone was breathing heavily, their eyes focused on the inert chest.

"We…we won…," Jaune muttered under his breath, but it was so quiet everyone heard it all the same.

A moment later, he started to chuckle, something that the others began to echo as well. Soon, the entire clearing was awash with jubilant laughter, happy to finally have time to simply relax.

That was when Shaggy walked over to the side of the Mystery Machine and announced, "So, like, I've been smoking a brisket for the past fourteen hours. Anyone up for some food?"

Before anyone could respond, Shaggy hit the side of the van, causing a panel to fall over and reveal a built-in smoker. Opening the lid, he allowed the aroma of the smoked brisket, alongside an assortment of other barbequed meats, to waft over everyone. Ren had to admit, it smelled quite good.

Part of him wanted to remain exasperated at how Shaggy could still think of food at a time like this. But the rest simply had enough and said, "You know what? I would love some brisket."

It was a sentiment shared by everyone, and Shaggy smiled.

[~]

"Guys, we are so sorry we weren't able to help!" Ruby profusely apologized for what had to have been the twelfth time since she and the rest of Team RWBY arrived. Apparently, they had showed up alongside the Justice League Dark, but had been tasked with assisting the evacuation efforts. They had engaged some Deep Ones, but the Atlantean Navy kept the bulk of them contained out in the water.

"Ruby, it's fine. None of us knew this was going to happen. Besides, we had it handled," Jaune insisted as he took another bite of brisket, letting out an involuntary moan.

"Oh my God, Shaggy. These ribs…they are so good!" Yang remarked as she dug into the barbequed meats, sauce staining her lips and fingers. "Best I've ever had!"

"Like, thank you, man!" Shaggy replied as he continued to grill more and more food for what was turning into a victory cookout.

With Nyarlathotep and his forces defeated and routed, the chaotic terror of before was replaced with a calm peace. The police were combing through the mansion, assisted by a fully healed and repentant Mr. Blackman who was giving his full cooperation. Jaune suspected the man wasn't going to face any criminal charges. After all, he had no direct involvement in what had happened. But the same couldn't be said for any civil suits coming his way. He likely would have to sell his museum which, funnily enough, Constantine thought would actually fetch a higher price given the genuine supernatural event which just happened. Only time would tell, but Ren hoped the man would be able to bounce back.

Now they were just focusing on eating the meal that Shaggy had been preparing, sitting at various improvised tables that were packed in the Mystery Machine. Ren had to admit, Yang was right. The ribs, brisket, sausage, mashed potatoes, vegetables and everything else that Shaggy had prepared was absolutely mouthwatering. The man was a culinary genius, apparently winning several awards in the field over the years. He'd even won Master Chef once, with Shaggy proudly showing off a picture of him and Gordon Ramsey after he won the season.

"Your Highness, you've battled with Cthulhu before?" Weiss asked Aquaman, trying to maintain a sense of decorum that was immediately broken by him letting out a satisfied burp.

"Yep. That fat bastard keeps trying to break out every year or so," Aquaman replied as he took a swig of beer from a bottle. "We keep a watch around R'lyeh to make sure he isn't trying anything, and when he wasn't where he was supposed to be we went on alert. Wasn't hard to figure out he was coming here."

Taking another massive bite from his brisket, Aquaman didn't seem to notice the flabbergasted look that Weiss was giving him. She clearly didn't expect the King of the Ocean to act like a "surfer bro" as Qrow lovingly put it as they shared some beers. Yang, of course, absolutely loved it, as did Nora, Jaune and Ruby. Weiss, on the other hand, just looked disappointed as her royal fantasies were destroyed.

Ren couldn't help but shake his head, then he noticed Nora giving him a knowing look and a tilt of her head. Realizing that they couldn't put this off any longer, Ren followed her to the back of the Mystery Machine, where he immediately began to apologize, "Nora, I just want to say that I'm sorry. What I was doing, I didn't mean—"

"I know you didn't," Nora interrupted. "You're just…looking out for me. Looking out for all of us. But you're not the only one doing that. You never were, Ren. I've been trying to get you to see that, but it hasn't been working."

"I know, and I'm going to try and fix this," Ren insisted, but Nora sadly smiled while shaking her head.

"And I know you will, eventually. But right now, I can't trust you won't blow up at us again. At me again."

That stung in the way that only truth could. Ren wanted to refute what she was saying, but deep down he knew she was right. He hung his head and sighed, then asked, "So…does that mean you're breaking up with me?"

"I wouldn't say that," Nora admitted while sadly shaking her head. "But I do think going on a break might be good for both of us. It's something I'd been thinking about for a while, honestly. Today just pushed it over the edge. For pretty much our entire lives, it was Ren and Nora, never just one or the other.

His first response was to question what was so wrong about that, before immediately remembering how he'd been pushing her and her 'distractions' away. It took all his efforts not to tear up, and by the shine in her blue eyes Nora was going through the same. But he persevered, and after wiping his sleeve across his eyes to clean them, he replied, "If you think that's for the best…then I'm okay with it."

Nora softly smiled before giving Ren a chaste kiss on the cheek. When she pulled away, she said, "I love you, Lie Ren. I always will, and when we're ready we can pick things up where we left off."

Ren softly smiled back, then replied, "I'd like that."

Nora smiled, then lightly punched him on the shoulder and said, "Now come on, let's get back to the others."

Nodding at his best friend, Ren walked with her back to the table, with only Pyrrha seeming to notice their absence as the others focused on their food and company. She didn't bring any attention to them, though, quickly realizing that whatever conversation they had was between them and them alone.

"You sure you don't want anything, Penny?" Shaggy asked as he finished cooking up the next serving.

"No thank you, Norville," Penny replied as she raised her hand and shook her head. "But should I ever change my mind, you will be the first to know."

"I'll hold you to that," Shaggy declared as he pointed his tongs at her.

Blake, meanwhile, kept trying to focus on her food and trying to ignore Scooby peering intensely at her. After a few moments, she finally broke and asked, "Why are you staring at me?"

"I ron't know row to reel about rou," Scooby admitted as he narrowed his eyes suspiciously, glancing up at her twitching feline ears on the top of her head. Blake simply stared blankly at him, then sighed in defeat before petting him, much to Scooby's satisfaction and simultaneous confusion as conflicting opinions swirled in his head.

Shifting her attention towards the others at the table, Blake said, "You know, if it weren't for the fact that we've had our own share of crazy experiences over the past few months, I'd find it hard to believe all of your stories."

"I know what you mean. We once tangled with the multiverse, even. Met our alternate selves," Velma declared before adopting a haunted expression on her face. "I was a jerk…."

The others in Mystery Incorporated comforted their teammate by patting her on the shoulder, and the others decided against pressing her on it. Ruby then stated, "Well, hopefully your next case won't turn out like this."

"No kidding," Fred agreed. "If we're lucky, our paths will cross again sometime soon."

"I would love to solve a mystery with you guys. It sounds like so much fun! You know, when you're not having to deal with evil gods."

Fred smiled at Ruby, who smiled back with bits of food between her teeth. That caused Fred and the others to laugh, but before anyone could say anything else, a rush of wind signaled a new arrival. Both Shaggy and Scooby immediately turned to him with a determination that Ren hadn't seen out of them during this entire debacle, one that was matched by the Flash himself.

"Shaggy. Scooby," the Flash stated challengingly as the pair stared right back.

"Barry," both of them replied in unison as they started circling each other.

"I heard about what you guys did. Good work," Flash admitted.

"Rank rou," Scooby replied as they all narrowed their eyes. "Rou ready to ruse, Rarry?"

"Lose, me? In an eating contest? Nah. Are you?" he shot back as he sat down at the table opposite them. "Hope you're hungry for defeat."

Shaggy and Scooby looked at each other, then they sat down, leaned forward, and Shaggy simply replied, "Hungry? I'm starving."

The Flash smiled as the challenge was accepted, then he disappeared briefly before returning with a large steaming pot filled with chili. As he opened it, he revealed, "This is a pot of Green Arrow's Five-Alarm Chili. It is, without question, the hottest thing I have ever had. The only person I have ever seen manage to eat an entire bowl without breaking a sweat is Batman."

"Pfft, it can't be that bad," Yang remarked, only for the Flash to hold out a spoon without taking his eyes off of his opponents. Shrugging her shoulders, Yang brought the spoon into her mouth, only to immediately spit it out and yell, "MOTHERFU-! MILK, I NEED MILK!"

The Golden Dragon sprinted towards the cooler, desperate to cool her mouth that felt like it was on fire. Everyone else stared at the pot of chili, with Weiss quietly asking, "What is in that?"

"I learned long ago not to ask," Barry cryptically replied, pulling out three bowls and handing two to Shaggy and Scooby. "The rules are simple. Whoever eats the most wins."

Shaggy and Scooby looked at the clean bowls, then they filled them to the brim while Shaggy said, "Sounds good to me, man. May the best eater win."

"I intend to," Barry said. Then, in unison, they all took a large bite, and began to scream in agony. And they continued screaming between every spoonful as they shoveled in more, the expressions of fiery torment unchanging.

As they ate, the others crowded around them, mesmerized by the entire scene. Bowls were filled and eaten from top to bottom, with the pot getting lighter and lighter with no sign of stopping soon. All three of their faces were flushed a deep red, their hair drenched with sweat beads dripping indistinguishable from the tears down their faces. Nora begged for them to stop, claiming that they were too young, but they ignored her in favor of their challenge. The others, out of solidarity, arrogance, or morbid curiosity, also attempted to eat some chili. But all of them, even Nora, fell to the same fate as Yang after a single bite.

Shaggy was the first to falter, falling out of his chair after his tenth bowl and leaving Scooby and Barry to keep going as he weakly reached out to the cooler. The pair were neck and neck, continuing to eat despite their mouths screaming at them to stop. But after getting halfway through his fifteenth bowl, Barry's eyes widened, and he fell back limply while Scooby, through sheer will, persevered.

As the Great Dane licked his bowl clean, the crowd behind him celebrated his victory. He hefted the bowl skyward, then cried out, "Scooby-Dooby-Doo!"

[~[~]

Hello, everyone! Here is the latest chapter of Hunters of Justice, and the conclusion to the Scooby-Doo Mini-Arc. Special thanks to NaanContributor and Jesse K for their help in bringing this chapter to life. A lot has happened since the last time I posted. I recently started a new job, still recovering from my surgery that is taking longer than we thought it would but it's nearing the final stages. But I'm always happy to get back to this.

After a hard-fought battle, our heroes have emerged victorious over Nyarlathotep and his worshippers. Guess the Crawling Chaos should've paid more attention to the genre he was in. He thought he was the villain in a cosmic horror story, not a Scooby-Doo story. Let me tell you, writing this entire arc has been an absolute blast. From Ren increasingly pulling out his hair towards Scooby and Shaggy's shenanigans, to Nora's unwavering acceptance of it, Jaune and Fred's bond as fellow leaders, as well as Penny and Pyrrha working with the girls of Mystery Inc. As I said when this arc began, Scooby-Doo is one of my favorite franchises, and being able to honor it in this way was an absolute joy.

And yes, odds are I will eventually do another one with Team RWBY. It probably won't be of this scale next time, and certainly not for a while. But we all know that Ruby finally being able to solve a mystery with Scooby and the Gang would be a joy to go through. She probably would do it wearing a Sherlock Holmes outfit and smoking a bubble pipe, much to Weiss' consternation.

Anyway, the next chapter at least is going to be a cooldown. Might be two, depends on how things go. After an exciting arc like this, cooldowns are necessary. After that, it's onto the next batch of heavy stuff as we get the Whitely/Willow and Qrow Integration chapters, before we finally enter the climax of the entire Grimm Crisis. Trust me when I say that you guys will know when the climax starts, and when it does, no more distractions.

Anyway, to answer some of your questions:

I don't take story suggestions, much less entire stories for me to write. If you want to see a RWBY x Starcraft crossover, do it yourself. I'm not doing it. Any stories I write are ones I come up with myself.

Thank you, I'm glad you liked my take on Peacemaker. I was inspired by John Cena's take on the character.

I do have plans for Team RWBY to team up with the Flash eventually in a dedicated arc. As for the JSA, they are defunct. They were around in WW2 and the 1950s, but have since been disbanded after they tried to get involved in the nascent Civil Rights movement only for Joseph McCarthy to do his thing. This was explained in a previous chapter as to why the Justice League doesn't let themselves work for any one government.

Yep, RWBY has been saved, as far as we can tell. They are now owned by Viz Media. Still no word yet on whether Volume 10 has been greenlit, but I imagine it is only a matter of time. Until then, we'll have to wait and see.

Guys, please don't suggest other third-party crossover ideas that can happen in the context of HoJ. Will some more happen? Yes, probably, but you guys suggesting them won't influence my thinking. Also, keep the FFN reviews on topic. This is not a message board so don't use it to converse with each other or ask irrelevant questions.

We do know, actually, that Grimm Pools can be turned into a river. We explicitly saw this during Volume 8 where Salem used a Black River, for lack of a better word, to break through the ice underneath Atlas before erupting in a massive geyser, depositing Grimm onto the side of Atlas who were then able to destroy the shield generators protecting Atlas.

Crisis on Infinite Earths is a true climax storyline. If I do that, it would be at the very, very end of the Hunters of Justice Cinematic Universe, as it were.

Regarding how Lovecraft's works can exist in DC, it's actually not that hard. For one, it's DC Comics. Everything and the kitchen sink can fit in there with no issues. Second, DC already has Lovecraftian beings in it. Hawkgirl killed one in the Justice League cartoon with Soloman Grundy. The Thanagarians use Nth metal weapons explicitly to help them defeat such beings. Not to mention there was "Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham", and it is canon that Aquaman seals Cthulhu in his underwater prison once a year. That was why he showed up at the climax of this chapter. So, throwing them in isn't that big of a deal, and as we saw, they are problems that while certainly demanding attention are not, in and of themselves, world-ending.

The entire point of this arc was to be a love letter to Scooby-Doo and all its eccentricities. If I didn't include the Door Gag, y'all would've rioted. We tried to insert as many as we believably could, including the Ultra Instinct Shaggy meme. Let me tell you, I was very happy to be able to at least reference that. I'll let you guys decide if there is something else going on there or if Ren was just seeing things.

Don't worry, while Batman is my favorite DC character and he plays a large role in the story, I don't intend to make him be the central focus of the story. He's just part of a bigger hole.

I will write "Till All Are One" , or any of my other story ideas, once one of my current stories are completed. Until then, I have no desire to add a fifth story on top of the four I am currently writing. If you guys thought my update schedule was already slow, adding a fifth story would make it worse.

Glad you liked the comedy and the horror. We tried to balance both here, with a heavier focus on the comedy. It is Scooby-Doo, after all.

Please don't compare my efforts in terms of quality to the canon source material. I wouldn't be doing any of this if it weren't for canon in the first place. While I can write with the benefit of hindsight compared to what canon offered, that is an advantage that the original authors never had, not to mention a plethora of other freedoms that I possess as a fanfic writer that they don't. But yes, I am glad that I was able to capture the feel of Zombie Island. That is my favorite piece of Scooby-Doo media and a major inspiration for this arc.

One of our goals here was for Fred, aside from being obsessed with traps, to be the normal one of the group. So, him saying "Son of a bitch" was both appropriate and really funny.

That's it for now. Let us know what you guys think! If you have a TV Tropes account, any assistance in updating the TV Tropes page would be greatly appreciated. We hope you enjoy and see you all next time!