#the majestic rock of kissteria is revealed!

[mxliv-oftheendless]

Black Dahlia (Chapter 6)

Morning all, and welcome back to Black Dahlia! This is sorta more of a filler chapter where not much action happens, but don’t you love those kinds of chapters? Hope you enjoy! Also, there’s no “Keep Reading” thing this time because I’m posting this from my phone and I can’t put a “Keep Reading” thing there from my phone for some damn reason. Sheesh, Tumblr, amirite? Anyway, read on and enjoy!

After completing their search of the sector, the only room they hadn’t checked was the chem lab, as it was locked.

“Shandi has the keys,” Starchild told Heather. “So we need to find Shandi.”

Shandi, luckily, was in her special effects lab, making sure effects worked for the concert. She was happy to open the lab for them, she just had to finish a test run.

Heather watched the generated ghost fly around and moan and cackle, and she had to admit—her effects were impressive. She definitely had the means to conjure a realistic-looking scythe… but what potentially was her motivation? She definitely stood to lose something if the park closed.

“Do you like working at KISS World, Shandi?” Heather asked her conversationally.

Shandi looked up at the question, and smiled. “Yeah, it’s pretty great. I mean, that security lady, Delilah, is kind of intense, but Mr. Goldman’s nice. It’s definitely better than always being on the road. Why do you ask?”

“I dunno, I just heard the park might close if this witch mystery isn’t solved,”

Shandi looked surprised. “Really? That’s terrible!”

Heather nodded. “Yeah, it is.” Reassured slightly, Heather went back to watching the ghost.

Suddenly, the door banged open and someone ran inside, tackling the ghost—or trying to tackle it, rather. There was a grunt, and then a splash. Why was there a splash?

“Freddy!” a voice cried out. Daphne?

The form on the floor sat up. “What is this place?” he said aloud—it was Fred.

The ghost disappeared, and Shandi turned the lights back on. “It’s my special effects lab,” she said.

Heather looked, and it was indeed Fred on the ground, looking soaked, with Daphne behind him. “Hey, kids!” she said cheerfully.

Starchild was not so cheerful. “I thought I told you guys to stay back,”

Daphne glared pointedly at Fred as he picked himself up off the ground. “Some of us had other ideas,”

Shandi looked at Fred’s soaked clothing. “Don’t worry, Fred, we can dry you off.” She turned to her two assistants. “Beth? Christine?”

The two girls went over to a huge fan and turned it on. The blast of air blew Fred back, and distorted his voice as he tried to speak.

When the girls turned off the fan, Daphne spoke again. “I take it you didn’t find the witch?”

Heather shook her head. “Nope,”

“We searched this whole sector except for the chem lab,” Starchild replied. “That’s why we came to Shandi.”

“I’m the only one who has the key,” Shandi explained. “C’mon, let’s go.”

The group followed Shandi down the hallway to the lab. “If you don’t mind me asking, Shandi,” Heather said to her, “why is the lab locked?”

“For the last few months, chemicals have gone missing,” Shandi replied. “So I keep the lab under lock and key. No one gets in without coming to me first.”

“What kinds of chemicals?”

“Gases, mostly. The gas is harmless to people, but the effect it makes is cool.”

Shandi unlocked the door, opened it, and turned on the lights. There were tables set up, and a machine over in one corner, but other than that the tables were bare. “See?” Shandi gestured to the tables. “Empty.”

Fred’s eyes lit up at the sight of the machine. “Hey, is that a chemical analyzer?”

Shandi smiled. “Pretty smart of you, Fred,”

“I’ve got a couple at home,” Fred pulled out the evidence bag containing the red dust. “Hey, do you think you can analyze this? It’s the residue from the witch’s mist.”

Shandi took the bag. “Sure. Anything for a fellow chemie.”

Fred watched her go over to the analyzer. Heather raised an eyebrow at that, then turned to find Daphne glaring in Shandi’s direction. Jealousy on both fronts, eh? This is sure to end well…

The analysis was going to take a few hours, so Fred and Daphne decided to meet up with the rest of the gang.

“Would you allow me to escort you back to the surface, m’lady?” Starchild asked Heather jokingly, bowing like a gentleman as Daphne and Fred walked off.

Heather laughed and curtsied. “Oh, how very kind of you, sir,”

As they were walking back to the surface, Heather suddenly thought of the flowers lining the wall. “Hey, by the way, I wasn’t expecting the flowers outside the wall. Who did that?”

“Uh…” Starchild rubbed the back of his neck. “… We suggested it. The band, I mean. We didn’t actually expect them to do it.”

Heather wasn’t expecting that. “Oh… Well, they look really nice.”

The two of them were silent for a moment, then Starchild said, “Heather… if you wanted to, you could come back.”

Heather turned to him in surprise. “I could?”

“As I said, if you wanted to. We’d all accept you back. If you don’t want to, it’s okay. But… we miss you almost every day.”

Heather couldn’t find a reply, except for, “… Can I think it over?”

Starchild nodded. “Of course. Take all the time you need, and when you’re ready, we’ll be there.”

-KISSTERIA-

Heather rejoined the gang in the security building. Upon walking into the room with the security cameras, she immediately noticed Shaggy and Scooby were shaking, glancing around. “What happened to you guys?”

“Like, we ran into the witch and some freaky KISS monsters!” Shaggy replied. “We like barely escaped with our lives!”

From where she was sitting at the computers, Velma rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic, Shaggy.” She turned and explained to Heather, “They ran into the Crimson Witch, and she apparently made KISS monster statues come alive. By the time we got there, they were gone.”

Heather raised her eyebrows at both the story and Velma calling her the Crimson Witch. “Freaky. How was your visit to Chikara?”

Velma frowned at the thought of the woman. “I’ll give her this: she can tell a story.”

“It still seems kind of freaky to me,” Daphne stated. “Too freaky to be real.”

Heather didn’t reply to that. She wished it was too freaky to be real, too.

She and the gang gathered around Velma’s chair as she keyed up character profiles of all the people they had met tonight. “I can’t say we don’t have enough suspects,” she said. “The problem is finding a motive.”

“The only one who’d like the park to shut down is Chip,” said Fred. “But he doesn’t seem smart enough.”

Daphne turned to him. “Shandi’s smart enough,”

“I know,” Fred replied. “But she’s way too cute to be a suspect.”

Daphne glared at him. Heather rolled her eyes. “I’m not too sure about Shandi, Daphne,” she said to the obviously-jealous girl. “I asked her earlier about it—I don’t think she wants the park to shut down.”

“What about Manny Goldman?” Velma asked.

Heather frowned as Manny’s profile came up onscreen. “Manny would never do something like this,” she insisted. “He’s not the type. Besides, he doesn’t even want the park to close.”

“Like, neither would the security lady,” Shaggy chimed in. “They’d lose their jobs.”

“Chikara’s the one who’s most obsessed with the witch,” Velma said, turning her chair around. “She talks as if she’s really supernatural.”

“She’s not?” Shaggy asked.

“No, Shaggy, she’s not. No matter what you think you’ve seen, there has to be a rational explanation.”

Heather didn’t give a reply to that, either. The way this mystery was going, she was going to let Velma stick to her philosophy for as long as possible—she wasn’t going to sink so low as to shatter it for her.

“It all centers on that rock,” Fred commented.

“The so-called Rock of KISSteria,” Velma agreed, “which seems to be KISS’s Detroit Rock.”

Heather snorted slightly at that. It was a lame cover story back then, and it was a lame cover story now.

“You mean the one they sing about in that song ‘Detroit Rock City’?” Shaggy asked. “I always thought that stood for rock and roll!”

“Huh.” The gang and Heather turned to see Spaceman and Starchild entering the room. It was Spaceman who had spoken. “Never thought of that,” he said thoughtfully. “I guess that works too.”

“Did you figure anything out?” Starchild asked the group.

“Not yet,” Daphne answered. “But if we had that rock, we might be able to set a trap.”

Starchild smiled at her. “Then maybe it’s time we hand it over to you, darling,”

-KISSTERIA-

Heather watched in anticipation as Demon placed the ornate box on the table, trying hard not to bounce on the balls of her feet in excitement.

“I do not like this,” Demon growled.

Starchild just kept smiling. “It’s going to be fine,”

“How do you know?”

Starchild just pointed at his right eye.

Demon was not amused. “Oy…”

Catman spoke up. “C’mon, Demon. If we don’t stop the witch tonight, the park’ll go under!”

“So let’s rock these kids already!” Spaceman exclaimed.

The two of them placed their hands on the box one after the other, and Starchild followed. When they placed their hands on the box, a musical note sounded out.

Demon finally heaved a sigh and threw his hands up in the air. “Alright,”

He placed his hand on the box, and a fourth musical note sounded. Then the top decoration of the box twisted around, then sank down. The box opened, and the Rock of KISSteria was revealed to them all.

Perhaps it was because it had been years since she’d seen it, but the sight of the majestic black diamond took Heather’s breath away. She had always taken pride in the fact that her family helped to create that rock, and to see it before her eyes again was nothing short of an honor.

The rest of the gang seemed awed as well. “Jinkies,” Velma breathed. “It’s a black diamond!”

“The largest in the world,” Starchild informed her proudly.

“That explains why the Crimson Witch has turned this place upside down looking for it!” Daphne exclaimed.

“Now it’s just a matter of setting a trap,” Fred said, getting his serious plan-making look on his face.

“Yeah!” Shaggy agreed, placing his hand on Scooby’s head. “So like, who’s going to be the bait?”

All of them, Heather included, turned to look at them and chorused, “You are!”

Shaggy and Scooby visibly deflated at the news. “Scoob, how is it that out of four ginormous superheroes, you and I have to do the hard part?”

Scooby sighed despairingly. “Oh, just lucky, I guess,”

Heather smiled at them. “C’mon, guys, you can do it! KISS can’t lure her out; they’re too obvious.”

“Yeah,” Catman agreed. “Put yourself in our shoes.”

Shaggy perked up at that. “Y’know what? That might just help.”

-KISSTERIA-

“… and then we’ll throw the net over the witch!” Fred concluded, smiling in excitement as he finished explaining his plan. “So, how’s that sound?”

He was met with silence. Demon, in his usual blunt fashion, spoke up first. “Your plan is to lure her out with the Rock of KISSteria… and throw a net over her?”

“Yeah!” Fred nodded. Then his smile faded slightly. “Why? Is that bad?”

Catman shrugged. “I mean, it’s not a bad plan. It’s just…”

“You’re going to need to do better than that,” Spaceman finished.

Velma looked skeptical. “She’s just a woman in a costume. How hard can it be to trap her?”

“Very hard,”

Everyone turned to Heather. Her arms were crossed, her gaze was on the floor, and the younger kids were instantly struck by the haunted look on her face. She looked up at Fred. “Fred, far be it from me to get in the way of your trap-making, but it’s not going to be that simple. Either add on to it, or scrap it and think of something else.”

“But Aunt Heather—” Fred began, but Heather cut him off, her voice now firm.  

“I don’t care. You need to do better than just throwing a net over her!” She turned to the rest of the gang. “And that goes for the rest of you. The Crimson Witch is dangerous, kids. She’s not some run-of-the-mill monster who’s just a human in a costume. You all have to understand that from here on out, you could get seriously hurt, or even killed. So figure it out, but in the gods’ names, do not just settle for throwing a net over her.”

She turned on her heel and headed for the door, saying over her shoulder, “I’ll go tell Manny we’re making a plan.”

When she had disappeared out the door, Daphne made to follow her. “Let her go,” Starchild said to her. “She’ll be fine.”

“I’ve never seen her like that before,” Fred said worriedly. “What is it about the Crimson Witch that makes her so upset?”

“Chikara mentioned Heather, too,” Velma piped up. “But she kept calling her ‘Black Dahlia.’ Why is that?”

KISS glanced at each other, and it was Starchild who answered. “There’s a lot about Heather she doesn’t like to talk about, and a lot more to her than you realize.”

“But Aunt Heather’s… Aunt Heather!” Fred insisted. “She’s not some maniac with a ton of secrets! She’s just Aunt Heather, my sixty-year-old aunt who likes flowers and rock music! Why would she want to keep secrets?”

Demon glared at him pointedly. “Let’s say something happened to you, so horrible that you were never the same as you were before. Would you want to talk about it?”

None of them had an answer to that.