The carnival funhouse had been designed in good humor, but all it delivered was creepitude. Never mind the clown gallery or distorting mirrors. All anyone could think about was the elusive actress playing Daphne Blake. When she wasn't snooping around with a magnifying glass, she was applying make-up and adjusting her dress in the mirror.

A ten-year-old boy chanced upon her in the music room.

"You know Daphne never used a magnifying glass, don't you?"

Mystery Inc's celebrated eye candy observed the boy quizzically, then lifted her hand to her cheek. Her fingers closed around the area in a firm, solid grip. Creases and trenches sprawled out, so deep and capacious that hotwheels could have driven between the newly-formed folds.

And then she tugged on it. The skin loosened from the flesh beneath, and a dim red seam crept around her neck in an uneven line. As the seam thickened, shimmering scales peeked out between the divided skin. The human elements crept over a beak, sharp and rapacious, though as dim and red as the scales beneath it.

Even Daphne's crystal blue eyes faded into dusk as the lids followed her fist. Beneath it all emerged the face of a horned dragon, whose business being in a Daphne disguise was a mystery even Scooby couldn't unravel.

"Maybe she should have," retorted the guy beneath. "Then she would have been Velma's equal."

The boy screamed. He thought he'd stumbled into the house of horrors by mistake.