Courage sat silently in his owner Muriel's lap as she paid solemn attention to the priest addressing her fellow mourners as her second cousin Agatha's casket was lowered into the ground. The little dog was exhausted by the long trip all the way here, but he would gladly endure it if it meant keeping Muriel happy.
"Oh, Courage," Muriel said as the service started wrapping up, "I do wish you could've met Cousin Aggie. She was such a dear, sweet woman. She made friends everywhere she went..." As she looked around at the other mourners and focused on one she didn't recognize: a young-looking man with a disheveled suit and dark rings around his eyes. "That's strange; I knew all of her family, but she's never introduced me to him before."
The man noticed Muriel looking at her and approached. "I hope I'm not intruding or anything, but I couldn't help but notice your confusion." He spoke softly and with a Mexican accent. "Were you related to her?"
"Oh, yes, I'm her cousin Muriel," the old woman replied. "And who might you be?"
"Oh, how dreadfully rude of me," the man said. "I'm Jack. Jack Russell. I was living in the area for a while, and she helped me out with a... rather harrowing hunting experience. Where I was the one being hunted. It happens, y'know?"
"She was always so kind," Muriel said wistfully. "She even sent me this lovely gift before she passed on!" She reached into her dress and produced a pendant with a glowing red gemstone, causing Jack to recoil in shock. Courage couldn't be sure, but he thought he saw Jack's muscles pulsating for a brief moment.
'I'm sorry," Jack said. "That's the Bloodstone. Its magic properties are... disagreeable to me. Call it allergies."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Muriel said as she pocketed the Bloodstone again. "Now, tell me more about this hunting accident, if you don't mind."
"Gladly," Jack said. "My old pal Ted and I were looking for a place called Lee Ho Fook's -- I heard their beef chow mein was to die for -- when suddenly..."
Courage stopped paying attention around that point when he started looking around and saw a tall, slender old man in an old-fashioned black suit approaching a nearby hearse. The Tall Man was carrying an open casket, which he hurriedly closed and effortlessly lifted with one hand into the car. Sensing that he was being watched, he glared at Courage and pointed back and forth between the dog and the casket before driving off.
"There's something weird going on around here, or my name is Angus," Courage said to himself. 'And it's not!"
"And then I told Ted that if this happens again, he'll just have to cut himself out next time!" Jack finished his story as Muriel joined him in a laugh.
"Well, you sure know how to tell a story, Mr. Russell, but I don't want to take up too much of your time," the old woman said. "We'll have to get going soon... and besides, I haven't a clue where me husband Eustace ran off to. Have you seen him around, Courage?"
Courage didn't respond, clearly disturbed by the Tall Man from earlier for reasons he still didn't understand.
Elsewhere, Eustace grumbled to himself as he made his way through the other side of the cemetery. "Stupid graveyard. Stupid relatives, making me come all this way. Don't they know I'm missing the MASH finale? She'll still be dead when it's over!"
His ruminations were cut off by a breathy, soft voice cooing his name. "Eustace"...
"What's huh?" The farmer snapped his head up and turned in the direction of the voice; on a nearby hill, he saw a shapely blonde woman in a flowing purple dress. She was beckoning him while sitting on a tomb surrounded by giant piles of money, gold, and jewelry.
"I'M RICH!" Dollar signs appearing in his glasses, the old man ran as fast as his old bones would allow toward the woman bearing the generous gift before him. Just as she was about to put her arms around him, Eustace shoved her aside. "Hit the road, lady! Finders keepers!" He then laughed as he dove into the pile of cash and played around in it like a child in a ball pit.
Well, he thought it was cash, at least. Onlookers just saw a kooky old man rolling around in leaves and pinecones.
"Rich rich rich," Eustace repeated to himself as he stuffed his pockets, oblivious to the enemy sneaking behind him. "A new pool table first, then gold hubcaps for me truck, then a condo... on Mars!"
Eustace was then tackled from behind by what looked like a diminutive, human-shaped being in a hooded robe. The stranger let out a strange, high-pitched skittering noise as it attempted to throttle the old farmer.
"Let go of me," Eustace shouted as he shoved the small creature off of him as he shoved what he thought were his riches behind him. "Lousy rotten teenagers! This is mine; you can't have it, ya freeloader!"
The small creature charged at Eustace again; as Eustace tried to hold it back, he saw a horde of similar dwarfish beings emerge from the woods, ready to pounce on him at once.
"I told Muriel to pack me mallet!"
Muriel, Courage, and Jack entered the mausoleum. "Eustace," Muriel called. "Eustace, where are ya? We're going to miss the mercy meal if you don't get a move on!"
"Ted?" Jack called out. "Ted, if this is another of your tricks, I swear I'll lose it!"
The three went off in different directions in search of their respective acquaintances. As Courage made his way down one hallway, a good distance from Muriel and Jack, he passed by a nondescript door. He stopped, almost as if by instinct, as he heard a low, droning noise coming from the other side. "I know I'm not gonna like this," the small dog said as he opened the door.
He entered a room full of four-foot-tall canisters that seemed to be shaking and moving on their own. Courage followed the droning sound to what looked like a pair of metal poles protruding from the floor and positioned like the prongs of a tuning fork. Courage cautiously approached it, sticking his front paw in the space between the poles... and gasped as said paw seemed to vanish into thin air! He pulled his paw back, seeing it had reappeared, and slowly moved it back and forth through the empty space, watching it disappear and reappear with each motion.
Eventually, the dog stuck his head through the space between the prongs and finally saw what was going on: he had happened upon a portal to another dimension! Courage looked around with mounting horror as he beheld the hellish landscape filled with hideous demons toiling away in slavish servitude to the Tall Man.
Courage pulled his head out of the portal and started panicking. "What do I do? What do I do?"
"BOY!"
Courage turned around and saw the Tall Man glowering at him, baring his teeth in an animalistic snarl. The dog screamed at the top of his lungs and bolted out of the room as fast as he could.
"Muriel," Courage shouted. He turned around to see if the Tall Man was giving chase... only to be further confounded to see that he was instead being pursued by a flying metal ball.
Courage was so distracted that he accidentally collided with Di Lung who was approaching the opposite way.
"Watch where you're going, ya foo!!" Di Lung shouted at the dog, not even looking in front of him before the metal ball collided with his face and started burrowing its way into his skull. Courage ran faster, not wanting to see what that device would do to its unfortunate victim.
Courage eventually caught up with Muriel. "Oh, Courage, there ya are! You simply must meet Jack's friend Ted -- he's such a charmer!"
Courage ignored this and started spouting off horrified gibberish as he mimed what he saw in the Tall Man's home dimension and that metallic sphere he was nearly attacked with.
"What's that little dog going on about?" Jack entered the room with Ted, scaring Courage even more. Considering that Ted was a nine-foot-tall plant monster with glowing red eyes, this was to be expected.
"BOY!"
Everyone stopped cold as they saw the Tall Man storming toward them, more of his chrome spheres flying around him as a small army of his dwarfish minions marched behind him.
Ted let out a strange groan, which Jack understood.
"You mean he's the one you've been investigating this whole time," Jack said. "You've seen him dragging the missing bodies into that little room and doing who-knows-what to them in that portal?"
Ted nodded.
Jack turned toward Muriel. "Miss Bagge, I'll need to borrow that Bloodstone of yours."
Muriel pulled out the Bloodstone. "But Jack, your allergies"-
"Are only a danger to those in my way." Jack grabbed the bloodstone, and convulsed in pain as he transformed before their very eyes into a werewolf. "Get them to safety," Jack told Ted as he glared at the Tall Man. "This guy's all mine!"
Without missing a moment, Ted grabbed Muriel and Courage and hurried them outside as Jack lunged at the Tall Man and his hordes. Courage glanced backward and nearly fainted when he saw more clones of the Tall Man appearing seemingly out of thin air, Jack slashing away at them and spilling their yellow blood all over the place as fast as they appeared.
Soon, the Bagges were safe outside. "Thank ya so much, Mr. Ted," Muriel said. "But I wonder what's become of Eustace."
"Muriel," her husband's voice barked. The three turned to see Eustace, who was now very short. "You won't believe what's happened! Some stupid teenagers took all me money! And why are you taller than me all of a sudden?"
Muriel looked mystified as Courage and Ted chuckled despite themselves.
"Oh, ya think that's funny?" Eustace grimaced at the two before a sardonic smirk appeared on his face. "Let's see ya laugh at THIS!" He then immediately donned his signature green monster mask. "BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!"
Courage screamed at the sight of this... but so did Ted, who accidentally spewed several gallons of corrosive chemicals from his mouth, dousing the old farmer and reducing him to a mere skeleton.
"Stupid dogs!"