It had been a couple hours since the two combined groups of the Mane 6, along with Queen Haven, Alphabittle and Sparky, and Mystery Incorporated had set off to the castle of Vincent Van Ghoul in order to track down the 13th ghost from the Chest of Demons.
And during the long ride, the group managed to find themselves keeping busy in different ways.
For example, Daphne was the one driving, Velma was reading from the Grand Tome of the Chest of Demons and Zipp and Sunny were taking vigorous notes. Alphabittle and Hitch were sleeping in the backseat while Fred and Sparky were asleep in the front seat.
Misty and Izzy were snacking in the backseat with Shaggy and Scooby and Pipp and Queen Haven were talking about a variety of different things.
After a while, in the front seat, Velma let out a scoff from something she read in the book. “Grand tome? Please,” she rolled her eyes. “Please, it's barely 800 pages and most of it's the index.”
“But, it does have a lot of interesting information that we've never heard of about ghosts and spirits, Velma,” Zipp said. “You can’t deny that.”
“Zipp, what else do you want me to say?” Velma asked, holding up the book. “It's full of nonsense like, ‘The Chest of Demons can only be opened by the living’.”
“It’s true,” Scooby shrugged. “Of course it’s true!” Velma responded. “Because the dead don't open things. They don't do anything. They're dead!”
This shout was enough to wake Alphabittle, Sparky and Hitch, but Fred only stirred for a moment before falling asleep on Daphne’s shoulder again. “Man… are we there yet?” Hitch yawned. “We’ve been driving for hours! And I thought the flight from Maretime Bay to Zephyr Heights was long…”
“Not yet, Hitch. We should be there in a few hours though,” Daphne said, keeping her eyes on the road. “Well, speaking of the tome,” Sunny said to Velma, “does it say anything about what the 13th ghost might be?”
“Well, according to what Daph told me,” Velma said, glancing at the book again, “the one that got away is Asmodeus. King of demons. The most powerful of all evil spirits.”
This caused Shaggy and Scooby to yelp and hold onto each other, Izzy getting caught up in their hug as well. “Oh man…” Shaggy shuddered. “Like, we should have gotten rid of that crystal ball while we had the chance!”
“And I,” said Izzy, “should have moved before Shaggy and Scooby put me in the middle of their ‘Izzy-Shaggy-Scooby’ sandwich! GAH!!!”
Misty strained as she pulled Izzy out from between the cowardly duo, leaving them to fall in a heap in the back of the Mystery Machine.
Izzy sighed in relief at this before looking at the tired blue unicorn on the ground. “Thanks, Misty-Twisty.”
“Don’t mention it…”
“Hey, hey, Scooby!” Pipp tried lifting Scooby up. “Be careful! You’re flattening my wings like pancakes!”
While Queen Haven helped push Scooby off of Pipp's back, Daphne saw headlights appearing from the thick fog behind them, knowing that there was no one behind them just a few minutes ago… so where did that thing come from? “What the…?”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts!” Velma said, causing Shaggy to sit up. “You think we were born cowards?” he asked with a chuckle. “Sister, the main reason that we’re always on edge around ghouls and goblins, even fake ones, is that we've seen and fought 12 of the real thing! Plus, facing a bunch of Equestrian villains kinda adds to the point.”
“But Opaline was REAL, something that I could SEE,” Velma argued. “I’ve never seen those 12 other ghosts, and it’s just hard to believe in something that you can’t see for yourself.”
“Believe me, I always shared that philosophy before magic returned,” Alphabittle said. “But sometimes… trusting your friends and what they’ve seen is far more important than doubting them.”
“Well…” Velma still looked unsure about the subject. “I don’t know.”
At the same time, Daphne saw that the car behind them was quickly approaching with no intent in slowing down. Luckily, she knew just the way to handle this. “Hang on, gang!”
With the stomp of the gas pedal, the Miss-tery Machine sped down the road at an accelerated pace, causing the gang and ponies to jump in surprise. After a moment, Daphne slowed down and looked behind them to see that the car behind them had completely disappeared.
That was strange… where could it have gone? “Whoa!” Fred said, having woke up from the event. “What’s happening?”
“I thought someone was tailing us,” Daphne admitted, “but I guess--”
Suddenly, bright headlights appeared behind them, causing them all to gasp and look back. Turns out, a silvery black car with green flames emitting from the rear was right behind them, coming up so close that it was ramming into the rear end of the van. “YIKES!!” Hitch cried, grabbing Sparky out of mid-air. “What is that guy’s deal?!”
“I don’t know, but I don’t wanna find out!” Daphne said. “Hold onto something, guys!”
She quickly turned the wheel repeatedly to try and lose the black car, but it seemed to stick on their tail for quite a long distance, even appearing beside them after a few more moments of chasing.
Velma grabbed onto the tome and hugged it tight to calm herself. “I hope whoever’s driving that thing has insurance!”
“Insurance?” Misty questioned, looking at her friends. “Any idea what that is, ponies?”
As the ponies shrugged in confusion, Shaggy, Scooby and Queen Haven glanced out the window, but what they saw caused them to yelp. “Insurance follows the driver,” Shaggy said, “right?”
“Yes!” Velma answered. “Well, if that’s the case,” Queen Haven said, “we may have a problem!”
That’s when everyone looked over at the other car, realizing that their friends were right… the car had no driver within!
As the cat continued to slam and shove into the van, Daphne looked ahead just in time to see a tractor trailer heading straight for them, lights bright and horn blaring!
Everyone screamed as Daphne immediately turned the wheel, causing the Miss-tery Machine to barely avoid the tractor trailer, and they were soon chased again by that very same flame-spitting car.
That's when Sunny knew that she had to do something. “Izzy, Alphabittle, Misty, fire up your horns! We have to get this guy off of our tail!”
“We can do that!” Alphabittle nodded. “Come on, girls!”
Misty and Izzy pushed the doors open before all three unicorns began to fire magic blast after magic blast at the car, but the car continued to dodge, as if it knew when each blast was going to hit the road. “He's too fast for us, Sunny!” Misty said between blasts. “We can't get a hit!”
“Then we'll just have to move onto plan B!” Daphne said before looking to the cowardly duo shivering in the back seat. “Shaggy, Scooby! Pull it together and deploy every countermeasure we have!”
Shaggy and Scooby nodded at this, but Fred became even more confused and bewildered than before. “Countermeasures?” he questioned before he turned toward the backseat. “Huh?”
In the back of the van was a high-tech computer system, to which glowed with a bright green light. “Ooh, what about this button?” Pipp pointed to one of the buttons. “That ought to give the mystery car driver a run for his money!”
“Sounds great, Pipp!” Shaggy nodded. “Here goes nothing!”
With one press of the button, oil came shooting out from the back tailpipe, much to Fred’s surprise. “It shoots oil slicks?!”
Unfortunately, the black car avoided the oil slick by racing up the cliff wall, causing Misty to shriek. “That car is unbeatable!”
“It may have skills,” Zipp said as she threw a couple smoke bombs at it, “but so do we!”
The smoke bombs exploded in front of the car, causing it to swerve quite a bit before it resumed the chase. This seemed to give Queen Haven an idea. “Scooby, are there any buttons where the van could release smoke?”
“Uh-huh!” Scooby pointed to a button near the pegasus queen. “Right there.”
“Well then… take this!”
The second Queen Haven pressed the button, a smoke releasing device opened on the back of the van, and a bunch of smoke covered the car’s view, completely dimming it’s headlights from view. “Good job, sweetie-hooves!” Alphabittle said as he and Misty closed the doors. “That ought to keep ‘em busy!”
Fred, however, was still in shock. “It has a smoke screen?!”
Daphne merely shrugged and looked back, sighing in relief that the car was no longer chasing them…
…or so she thought.
Only a mere second or two of peace later, that same car that was chasing them appeared in front of them, causing them to scream and screech to a halt. “Okay,” Hitch said in panic, “how did they do that?!”
“I don’t really know how and I really don’t care at the moment!” Zipp said as she leapt forward, pushing Daphne out of her seat and taking the wheel. “Move over, Daph! I’m driving! Sparky, hit the gas!”
Sparky leapt on the gas pedal as Zipp shifted the van into reverse, and they sailed the way they came, full-speed I may add, backwards! “It may just be my sick gut telling me so,” said Pipp, “but somepony REALLY doesn’t want us on the road!”
That’s when Daphne looked behind them at the cliff, and seemed to get an idea. “Well, why didn’t they just say so? Zipp, I need you to drive off the cliff!”
“WHAT?!”
“I’ve got a plan, guys, trust me! But it can only get us away from this guy if we drive off the cliff!”
“Well… okay, Daph, I trust you!” Zipp gulped. “Sparky, hit it! Everypony else, hold onto something!”
And that's what everypony did, holding onto something or someone else as Sparky leapt onto the gas, sending the gang speeding backward and over the cliff's edge, toward the water below. And during their death-defying plunge, Daphne pulled a lever, which must have activated something as the Miss-tery Machine hit the water's surface.
Back at the top of the cliff, the black car seemed satisfied for finally getting rid of them and continued up the side of the mountain.
But a few seconds after that car left, the Miss-tery Machine floated back to the surface with the help of a large, yellow rubber ducky raft that Daphne used for missions on the water. And while everyone else was trying to stop their fast-beating hearts, Daphne and Zipp laughed in excitement and high-hoofed. “I can’t believe we just did that!” Zipp cried. “That was AWESOME!!”
“Zephyrina Storm, how can you say that?!” Queen Haven barked. “We would have plummeted to our deaths if Daphne had not activated the raft!”
“Oh, right right… sorry,” Zipp chuckled nervously before clearing her throat. “Awesome, but very dangerous.”
“Well, at least it got that creepy stranger off our tail,” Sunny said. “Any idea who he was?”
“No idea,” Velma shrugged. “But whoever it was certainly did want us killed one way or another.”
Misty gulped nervously. “Do you think it was another agent of Opaline…?”
“I don’t know,” Daphne said, “but we better get to Vincent’s castle if we wanna investigate any further. Sparky, push that button with the propellor.”
Sparky giggled and did so, causing a propellor to move them down the river. “This will be much faster anyway,” Daphne assured. Back in the back, Alphabittle sighed and hugged Misty close. “I can’t believe you guys experience danger like this on these quests.”
“It starts to become a routine, but… I guess we go through it okay,” Misty said once catching her breath. “I guess I’m just… a little worried about you and Queen Haven. You guys have never been outside Equestria before, and…”
“Hey, it’s okay, Tea. Haven and I will be fine,” Alphabittle reassured her, lifting her chin so she could look at him. “Trust me on that.”
“Well… all right then,” Misty said. “I trust you then. I just hope we get to Vincent’s place before we run into that stranger-danger car again.”
But what they didn't know that, flying above the cover of the clouds, was a strange, winged figure... and it seemed to flying to Vincent's castle as well.