The funny thing about being one of those who are about to save the world, or in actuality the universe, is that it never quite settles in. What I mean is that this one important factor doesn't ever sink in - what they are about to do will either keep everyone they care about alive, or doom them all.
Instead of fear of the unknown driving you mad, or the unrelenting worry of failure paralyzing you, it's actually a sense of calmness that overpowers you.
It's built into your hardware. If any of the negative emotions arise, you subconsciously know that you will not succeed because of it. So instead, all the emotions are locked away, so that what needs to be done can be done.
The weirdest part is how you don't realize it. The Scooby gang and KISS band especially had no clue. They didn't even question their calm composures. The only thing crossing their minds was the simple fact that they needed to figure out a plan.
Plans are what the Scooby-gang does best, so it was a no-brainer that only after a few fleeting moments, Fred's mind began rolling.
"Hey, Starchild said that rock-and-roll powers everything here."
Like the well-oiled machine that they had always been, Daphne was quick to catch on to Fred's thought process and add her thoughts as well.
"And it was music that created the Rock of Kissteria in the first place," she supplied.
Leaving the Scooby-gang to marvel in delight, Spaceman spoke up as he kept the ball rolling.
"So if we create massive music..."
"Our kind of music..." the Demon tacked on with an almost worrisome gleam (at least to those witnessing it) in his eyes and grin on his face.
"We'll overload the Destroyer," Starchild finished.
Rory was still exhausted from the prior confrontation with the witch. For a moment, she quirked her eyebrow in disbelief that Starchild had recovered so quickly, but then she recalled how KISS had been trained for this very moment. The Scooby-gang were the ones hanging on my the seat of their pants.
She quickly settled into a smile of admiration of the current circumstances, though.
Who knew that these two unlikely groups would come together in the end?
What made Rory the most grateful though was seeing how well her two worlds collided.
Literally.
Rory did not need to worry about her mixed past. Yes, she was born in Kissteria, but she was raised on Earth. She was a girl of two very different worlds.
But Rory was able to find contentment in seeing that she would never have to worry with her two identities going to war against each other.
As Rory felt herself lean into Catman's side for some support as she gained her strength back, he was quick to wrap his arm back around her with no questions asked. He looked down at her, adoration shining in his eyes, to give her a wink.
Rory was quick to return a smile of her own before they both tuned back into the present conversation, where Shaggy was beginning to get more than enthusiastic.
Waving his arms around, Shaggy exclaimed, "Yeah! You guys just need to make too much rock 'n' roll!"
Catman had taken great offense to Shaggy's statement, taking his arms back from around Rory to fold them crossly and hotly reply, "Too much rock-and-roll? Ain't no such thing."
All of a sudden, Rory seemed to get all her strength back, and then some, as she nearly doubled over in laughter.
Catman peered at Rory out of the corner of his eyes at her merriment to his expense.
If it was any one else, Catman would have probably sank his claws into them- figuratively. But it was Rory, just to see that smile on her face was enough to turn him into the world's biggest pushover, and he was ok with that.
As soon as Rory ceased her laughter, she noticed how low on air she had become. What was supposed to be a big inhale in to gain her breathe back turned into a coughing fit. She nearly was turning red over as the coughs racked her.
The Demon stepped forward to pat her back. He had remembered somewhere in the recesses of his mind being taught that it would clear air passageways in a person's body.
It was a nice thought, but the Demon forgot one tiny detail. His strength. For Rory, a simple pat from the Demon was comparable to a sucker punch.
Now Rory was on the ground, right under the Demon whose eyes were now blown wide, worried that he had killed the little heathen.
Everyone let out a breathe of relief when they heard the brunette groan and roll herself onto her back.
"Oops," the Demon gave an apologetic grimace to the girl now being helped up by Catman and Fred.
Once she saw that Rory caught her breath and was not about to asphyxiate, Velma tried to get the group back on track.
"Look, you're KISS.If anyone can make too much rock 'n' roll, it's you."
Starchild, who had been trying to hold in his laughter during the whole prior ordeal, looked up at Velma. Even though she was a little slow on the uptake of the existence of Kissteria, he trusted the smart, sarcastic girl.
"Then we'll head back to KISS World
and start the concert while you guys distract the Destroyer."
The entirety of the Scooby-gang froze at Starchild's words. They were supposed to distract the Destroyer?
Daphne ended up being the one to ask the million-dollar question. "How will we do that?"
"With this."
With those words, Starchild pulled out a set of Kissterian-style keys. Clicking a button, the gang turned to find what was emitting a noise that sounded like a metal door opening.
From the bottom of the spaceship that KISS used to get everyone to Kissteria, or at least the ones not sucked into the tear in the universe, a small spacecraft floated down.
Fred looked on it awe at the small ship. "Wow, neat."
"We call it the KISS craft," the guitarist told the Scooby-gang as he watched them gawking.
Trying to find some common ground, for once, Fred told the band, "we have a van
that we call the Mystery Machine."
This shoulders dropped though in defeat due to the bad timing.
"That's cool, Frank," Starchild answered him flying off with the Demon, "but we're running out of time."
Scowling, Fred muttered under his breath, "It's Fred," but it seemed to go unheard as the Scooby gang was now dashing towards the KISS craft.
"Quick, get in the KISS car," Rory heard Fred yell from up ahead.
She couldn't help but giggle when she heard Scooby correcting him that it was a KISS craft.
Rory jumped forward to follow her friends but halted when she felt someone grasp her arm.
She turned around to see Catman and the Spaceman still standing there.
The two had noticed the nervous energy radiating off of Rory, that had been growing and growing as time ticked by.
With a sigh, Catman grasped Rory gently by both arms. He saw the worry brimming around in her eyes.
"What if I make us fail again?" she quietly asked the two.
Looking deep in her eyes, Catman tried to find the words to ease her self-berating. "We are in this together, Rory. We will not allow any of this to rest on your shoulders anymore."
Spaceman looked towards the brunnette as well. "Speaking on the behalf of all for of us, I want to tell you how sorry we are. We didn't realize the pressure put on you as the Wielder. You were led to think that you were the key to whether or not the Destroyer would be released, but that is not the case. Ever since we were called to be the Wielder's Protectors, we became part of this as well. You are not alone in this Rory, and I'm sure your friends would say the same thing as well."
With tears threatening to prickle in her eyes, Rory grabbed Spaceman in a quick hug. She felt like she could breathe again because now she was reminded that she had so much support. Her friends had always had her back, and KISS has proved time and time again that they did as well.
And she would return the favor, no matter what.
Their small talk was soon interrupted when they heard Daphne's voice calling back to Rory.
"Come on!"
Spaceman gave her a friendly wink as he turned to fly towards the ship. "Give him hell, princess."
Before Catman left, though, he quickly grabbed her up into a sweet, chaste kiss.
It was short, much shorter than either would have liked, but they had a Destroyer to stop.
"Get back to me in one piece," Catman made Rory promise.
"One piece is my middle name!" Rory amusedly cackled running off towards the KISS craft.
Catman simply rolled his eyes with a grin at the antics of his girl before he flew off to the rest of his band. She would never cease to be quirky, even though sometimes her humor didn't make sense. But that was one of the many, many things he liked about her.
Rory took a running jump onto the edge of the KISS craft just as KISS's ship left through another portal.
Seeing as though she didn't have the best of grip, Velma and Shaggy quickly grasped onto the girl to finish hauling her the rest of the way into the craft.
Rory then proceeded to scurry into the front at Fred's urgent prodding. "Rory, come help me start this thing!"
"Why me!?" she exclaimed jumping down into the passenger seat.
"Your Kissterian, maybe you know what all these buttons mean!"
"I didn't know I was Kissterian until recently! How am I supposed to know these things!?"
Velma couldn't handle the back-and-forth any longer. The Destroyer's head was now peaking out of the nearby volcano. They didn't have any time left.
"Just put the key in already!" she yelled out to the duo.
Fred and Rory sheepishly looked at each other, giving a simultaneous "oops."
Fred quickly picked up Starchld's key and attempted to shove it into the right slot, but the shaking of the ground under the craft was proving to make it difficult.
"Come on," he frantically muttered before dropping the key to the floor of the craft due to a strong tremor shaking everything. His and Rory's eyes blew wide at their predicament while Fred simply offered a "whoopsy!"
The craft suddenly tilted to the left as a crater opened up beneath the craft. Everyone let out screams as they tired to hold on, but Scooby wasn't so lucky. He started to fly out of the craft, but Daphne, Shaggy, and Velma were able to grab ahold of him.
"You really need to lay off
the Scooby Snacks," Daphne told Scooby as he dangled on the outside of the craft. The three were having a very hard time holding him up to to his weight.
Offended, he let out a growl as he used all his strength to get his body back up and away from the pit below.
During this time, Rory had dove headfirst beneath the seats in search of the keys. "Yes!" Fred heard from the girl, slightly muffled before she popped back up from the floor.
She instantly shoved the keys into the craft, now all they had to do was twist the keys to start it up.
"Go, go, go!" she yelled in Fred's ear.
"I'm going, I'm going!" he said back to her.
As soon as Fred put his hand on the keys to turn the craft on, they all plummeted.
The crater had widened exponentially in seconds, and now they were falling into it.
A cacophony of screams rang out as the craft finally started up, halting their plummet into the lava below. Fred had successfully gained control of the KISS craft and wasted no time in flying them back out of the crater.
"Like, how did I get out here?" Rory heard Shaggy from behind her. She turned her neck to see that he was dangling in the same place that Scooby had been moments before.
She had no time to ponder the odd luck of her two friends when she heard an eery, deep, and dark voice ring out over the landscape.
The powerful voice seemed to rumble everything it came into contact with.
"Yes."
The Scooby gangs' hair (and fur) stood on end at the sound of the voice.
Looking to the owner of the voice, their eyes were met with no other than the Destroyer.
The Destroyer was nothing more than a disembodied head, floating above the volcano that had previously been it's tomb.
Grotesque, gray skin stretched across his gargantuan face. A battle-ready helmet sat adorned atop its head as well; silver-esque horns protruding from each side to complete the look.
The worst part was the eyes.
Catman's emerald eyes were mesmerizing. They were as calming as a forest, and as gentle as the coming of spring when the world around you was bathed in nothing but the green promise of warmer and happier days.
Although the Destroyer's eyes were green, Rory saw nothing in them even faintly similar to Catman's. All Rory could see in the glowing, acidic color was hatred and evilness.
This was going to a lot tougher than any of them had originally thought.
"Freedom is mine!"
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Top of the morning to y'all! (It is St. Patty's Day for me, so I had to say it lol)
I can't believe we have gotten this far into the story, there is only two chapters left! (Unless I write an epilogue, but I have no idea what to put in that yet.)
Let me know anything I can adjust/fix/add/etc. to make this story better for y'all!
And I know I sound like a broken record, but please leave likes on the chapters y'all enjoy <3 I would reallyyy appreciate it.
Love ya, my dudes!