I will return

57

N' Goo Tuana looked at me as if he were seeing a ghost out of his worst nightmares. I could see a delicious mix of surprise and horror in his eyes as he processed what was before him: me, Scrappy-Doo, without a wrinkle or a trace of the years that had passed. His mouth opened slowly, and I could hear his trembling voice barely whisper my name:

"Scrappy..."

I laughed, enjoying the fear I was generating in his old friend. "Hello, old friend," I said, savoring every word.

He could barely speak. "W-what...what the hell are you doing here...? You...you should be in prison."

"Oh, I know well, believe me," I replied, in a sarcastic tone. "And you should be helping me. But I see that you preferred to kick me when I was on the ground... instead of offering me a hand."

The expression on his face changed. Something in him seemed to go from surprise to a kind of controlled fury. "So what do you want, Scrappy?" he exclaimed, regaining some of his arrogance. "You can no longer do anything without the Daemon Ritus... you are nothing more than a vile, self-centered idiot trapped in the body of a mere puppy."

"That's how it is?" I said calmly, looking at his eyes fixed on me, with that expression of contempt he had always had when it came to underestimating me.

With a mischievous smile, I moved my paw back, slipping away the object I had kept hidden until now. As the Daemon Ritus emerged from the shadows, I could see his face contort in pure terror. "Yes, but... I have an old friend who missed you too."

N' Goo Tuana froze, his eyes wide, and I could see every fiber of his being trying to understand what was going to happen if he let himself get caught.