Fire engulfed Shaggy as he leapt into the spinning Tasmanian Devil. It’s coarse fur was bad enough, but the fact it was completely on fire didn’t help either. Then the thing spun forward, dragging Shaggy down into the street. He was squashed against the ground, but he held firm as his claws dug into the creature’s warm flesh. Flames licked at his body and his clothes ignited as Shaggy’s world shifted from darkness to light as the Devil rolled over and over. His armor plating kept him from being totally squashed against the pavement. In fact, the rolling seemed to push his claws deeper as he kept slicing into the devil.

Shaggy held on for dear life as the devil did it’s best to dislodge him. Going from spinning vertically to spinning horizontally. All the while spitting, howling, and burning. The smell of burnt blood filled Shaggy’s nose as the sound of popping and hissing filled his ear. Blood met fire as the Shaggy almost dug his way into the gigantic monster’s skin. The devil did a quick turn and started spinning the other way as Shaggy jammed his claws through the first bit of bone he saw. But his footing finally failed him as his blood-soaked feet couldn’t find purchase anymore. AS the devil spun out as harshly as it could, Shaggy went sailing into the street.

He didn’t know if he was the right side up or not. But when his head hit the pavement, Shaggy felt his world go dark. He snapped into consciousness later only to find he was half-buried in the rubble of a building. Shouts and screams still came from the street, along with sounds of gunfire. Shaggy glanced at the hole he was flung through to see Dave standing guard. The blue-armored player sent a furry-looking man sailing with an uppercut before kicking another thug in the thigh. Shaggy shook debris from his body as he stood, still covered in blood.

“Ow.”

Dave turned to look at Shaggy while countering a haymaker from a tiger-man. “Oh good, you’re awake. That was a wild-looking ride, dude? You good?”

Shaggy rapidly dug into his pockets before checking his health pool. But not only were his pants burned down to almost shorts, all of his food was melted or gone. He swore loudly before it occurred to him he wasn’t in as much pain as before. Looking down, he saw his wounds were all closed. The nebulous feeling of his regeneration was flagging like crazy. But all of his slow healing wounds were closed up. Apparently, all he had to do to fix whatever magical blue shit did was burn it off.

Shaggy absolutely broke into laughter. But losing his backup snacks was going to make things that much harder. As Dave brought his elbow down on some poor NPCs head, Shaggy pulled himself from the destroyed building. He briefly wondered why Dave wasn’t being overrun, but when he was fully outside the building, he saw why.

“Yeah, cavalry arrived, like, after you pulled your cannonball trick.” Dave said as he causally tossed gorilla thug through a mailbox.

Shaggy slowly nodded as he watched a woman made of brown bark stretch her limbs. The Supe used her elongated arms to slap around a few more thugs. Overhead, a man in a purple spandex suit was shouting at groups of hybrids. As he shouted, the thugs would topple over, completely unconscious. There was a bronze robot off in the distance trying to corral the spinning Tasmanian devil. Shaggy was pleased to see that the giant monstrosity was no longer spinning. Instead, it was drunkenly stumbling into buildings as it bled from a hole in it’s side.

Shaggy gave a large sigh. “Looks like the Supes have got it from here, Dave. Let’s skedaddle.”

Dave merely nodded his armored head as he punched another thug. The guy seemed fine. Which irked Shaggy slightly. He was shirtless, shoeless, and damn near pantless. Not to mention his hoard of Regeneration-sustaining snacks were practically melted to his damn leg. Shaggy sighed as he tried to limp away from the battle-filled streets. More and more Supe were showing up and the fires from the Devil were slowly being put out by more drones and Supers. Shaggy didn’t know if the riots were still going on. But he needed more food before he went into another fight.

“HALT! Villains!” A woman’s voice shouted behind them.

Shaggy groaned as he turned to see the tree-lady glaring at them. He saw the slim white band of an HLO communicator attached to the woman’s arm. The purple guy in the suit was floating just above her and looking down at his own comm unit. A pulse of blue light covered both Shaggy and Dave as they were scanned by a fast approaching drone.

“Shaggy Robertson. Wolf-like shifter. D-Tier threat as rated by the Liaison Offices. Wanted on counts of murder, theft, assault, destruction of public property, and trespassing.” Purple suit said.

“And his friend?”

“No records. Which means he is an unregistered vigilante.”

Tree-lady grinned. Her sharp, white teeth, disturbingly offset by her bark skin. “Looks like we have to take both of you in. You going to come quietly, or is it going to be option two?”

Shaggy grimaced as the aggressive lady cracked her knuckles. The normal cracking of the action was completely covered by the sound of snapping bark. He looked at Dave. The armored player was holding up both arms in surrender. Shaggy gave the dude an incredulous look before he grew his claws.

“Seriously?” Shaggy asked Dave, ignoring the Supes.

Dave dragged his arms down slowly. “Sorry. It’s a reflex.”

Shaggy shook his head as he turned back to the supers. “Look, I don’t have the time or the patience to deal with you today. So how about you fuck…”

Shaggy’s words got caught in his throat as a sudden tree branch slammed into his chest. He grunted as he was, once again, sent sailing further down the street. Damn tree-lady had sucker-punched him. He would’ve been impressed if he wasn’t absolutely livid. The tree-like fist in his chest kept shoving him through the air until he slammed into the pavement. The bark grew around him, obviously trying to contain him. Off in the distance, he heard the purple man screech.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“Fuck this!” Shaggy grunted as he slashed into the bark.

The brown bark gave way like paper and Shaggy hopped to his feet. The tree-lady was retracting her arm as she glared at him. Shaggy followed the slow-moving arm back to it’s owner as he noticed Dave leaping through the air to get to the flier. The human tree rushed Shaggy, her sharp teeth grinning madly. Shaggy waited until she was in range before going for a pounce. His thigh muscles tensed and he kicked from the ground, sailing toward his target.

His speed took the Supe by surprise as he slammed into her chest and started slashing away. They both fell to the street and bits of wood went flying as Shaggy continued to swipe. But there were no screams, and Shaggy swore he could still see the woman grinning away as Shaggy cut into her. A flash of brown out of the corner of his eye made him dismount from his target and roll away. He got to his feet just as the woman’s right arm retracted back to her body.

She had formed a large spike out of her right arm and her left had become a chunky-looking shield. Shaggy sighed as he shook out arms and legs. He really didn’t need this right now. They still needed to get out of here. Drones were in the air, the street was on fire, and more Supes or even more of the Wild Bunch were bound to show up soon. Not to mention his healing was low.

Bark-lady threw herself at him. Apparently tired of waiting for him to make a move. She thrust her spear arm at his upper thigh and hid behind her wooden shield. Shaggy sighed and slid to the side. Gripping her dominant arm, Shaggy spun and hip-tossed her onto the pavement. He brought both claws down toward her chest. But the dazed Supe had enough presence of mind to get her shield up. Shaggy’s claws sliced through the wood and continued downward, but the time the shield bought was enough for the Supe to roll away. Shaggy kicked ineffectually at the tree-woman’s rolling form.

Shaggy growled in aggravation. He really didn’t want to wolf-out for a simple fight. But he was going to have to if he wanted to finish things quickly and get away. Up above, Dave was holding onto the sound guy’s legs and trying to crawl up the man’s body in midair. Apparently, the Supe’s sonic screams were not working on good ole Dave. Shaggy did his best to keep from grinning at the scene. Off in the distance, the Fire Devil was roaring it’s death throes and smothered fires filled the streets with smoke.

Shaggy rubbed his nose. The scent of smoke was screwing with his sense of smell and irritating his eyes. He looked at his opponent as she got back to her feet. Sighing, Shaggy asked.

“You’re not going to let us go, are you?”

Tree-lady grinned wickedly as she reformed her shield. “Fuck no. You rotten bastards caused all of this. I’m taking every single one of you in.”

Shaggy nodded as the sound of grunting and punching came from above. Dave was manhandling the flier across the skies. They were zooming toward a building and Shaggy gave a wince at the sound of Dave being slammed into a building. But then the punches resumed, so he figured the boisterous player was fine.

Shaggy closed his eyes and knocked on the door to his inner wolf’s room. The mental image of the door swung open easily and a pair of eyes glared at him. Shaggy gave his wolf a little ‘come on’ wave and stood back as the wolf rushed out the door. In the street, Shaggy felt his body shift, his bones cracked and his muscles spasmed. Tree-lady must’ve realized what he was doing, cause she rushed him again, spear arm outstretched to impale him in the leg. The thick wooden spear slammed into his thigh and broke apart. Shaggy could only grin as his muscles burst outward and his skin grew furry.

As Shaggy dropped to all fours, a loud thud came from further up the street. Through blurry eyes, Shaggy could see an enormous gray figure stomping down the street. The Supe attacking him heard the noise as well. She said something Shaggy missed as his ears transformed. The Supe was backing away as Shaggy’s body twisted and settled into it’s new shape. As his eyes focused, he found that what he was looking at was an eight-foot gorilla in a gray suit. The beast took off it’s tiny eyeglasses and threw them aside as it glared at Shaggy. Then it opened it’s mouth and growled angrily in a deep rumbling voice.

“You have been fucking with my operation for too long, Shaggy.”

Shaggy twisted his head in confusion. He didn’t think he knew this guy. Was this George? Was he the leader of the Wild Bunch? Shaggy felt his lupine features settle into a grin as he crouched low on all fours. The ape snorted at the gesture and loosened his tie.

“You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, huh? This is my territory! I own this kingdom and no one is going to take it from me! Especially not some jumped up Wolf!”

Shaggy merely growled as he felt his back paws grip the asphalt of the road. The sonofabitch was big. But not enough for Shaggy to be afraid. He could take the talking gorilla out and all the Wild Bunch’s turf would be his. Tree-lady roamed back into Shaggy’s tunnel vision and a blue light swept across George. She snorted and grew out both arms into spears.

“George Alan. Hyper-Intelligent Ape. C-Tier threat as rated by the Liaison Offices. Leader of the Westside Lampers. Wanted for multiple crimes, including murder, theft, assault, and drug-related offenses.”

George’s face merely scrunched in derision as Shaggy was momentarily stunned into confusion. Wasn’t George the leader of the Wild Bunch? Who the fuck had he been fighting all this time? Shaggy had a brief memory of Mari explaining that George was in charge of the warehouse they first hit when they got topside. Other people had also mentioned George, and the animalistic nature of George’s troops made it seem like they were a wild bunch. But had he been wrong?

Dave and the purple guy came hovering back their way as he and tree-lady squared off against the big ape. Dave seemed to see what was happening as he dropped from the fliers back. But Shaggy wasn’t ready for the onslaught of exclamations Dave made.

“DUDE! You are so cool like this! The horns are new, right?! That is so badass. Can you, like, stab somebody with those? And your fur, dude. It’s like black, spiky, carpet. It is fucking wicked!”

Shaggy groaned as he waggled his massive head. He gave a short yip and pointed his muzzle at George. Dave started for a second at the big ape’s appearance, but afterward he started cackling.

“HAHAHAHA Oh my lord. That is epic. A showdown between a wolf and an ape? This is going to be great! You want some help?”

Shaggy rapidly nodded his head as the ape sneer grew deeper. Dave got into a fighting stance as the purple flier still hovered overhead. The two Supes were having a whispered conversation into their communicators. It was only because of Shaggy’s enhanced hearing that he even knew they were talking to each other. They were discussing whether to get involved. Flyboy was against the idea, while Tree-girl wanted to slap both Shaggy and George around. But George took the option away from the heroes simply by snapping his fingers.

A cavalcade of mutated animals charged down the street at the signal. Zebra’s with wings, hyenas that spat ice, squirrels that zoomed around faster than Shaggy could see. They all swarmed the street, attacking everything in their sight. The two Supers swore as they started talking into their communicators. Both of them charging into the animal melee. Dave’s helmeted head glanced around and Shaggy could guess that his friend was enamored with all the different creatures. But Shaggy kept his eyes on George.

He had to have been wrong this whole time. If George didn’t lead the Wild Bunch, then this war was far from over. He needed answers, and the monkey in the suit was going to give him some. Dave shuffled on his feet and shadowboxed slightly ahead of Shaggy. All of of George’s animals seemed to avoid them as they stared each other down. Dave was loose, Shaggy was poised, and George looked pissed as they readied themselves.