“So for the past few in-game days. You’ve been slamming your heads against what? An off-shoot of our actual target?”
“Seems like.”
“And you had no idea that George wasn’t in-charge?”
“Nope. In fact, Mari and Luis explained to me that George was the leader of The Lampers when we first got up here.”
“So you forgot?”
“Yes. I forgot. But to excuse my idiocy, no one corrected me.” Shaggy grumbled.
Levy merely raised an eyebrow while smirking at him. His pack all had chagrined looks on their faces. Meanwhile, Mari and Luis were staring at him like he was an idiot. Which Shaggy figured was fair.
They were seated on Levy and Shaggy’s cabin porch. Back home under the Deli. The trip home had been quick. With only a few brief dust ups with cop patrols and the occasional drone. Levy had made sure to magically scan each of them as they made their way back. Paranoid that the escape had been too easy. Shaggy wasn’t worried, though. Unless they had some weird remote-viewing power, Shaggy was sure they had gotten away free and clear.
Shaggy had immediately wanted to celebrate his escape. But one look from Levy had him rapidly explaining what had happened. Then, of course, Dave brought up their throw-down with the ape leader of the Lampers. Which brought up the conversation about Shaggy’s blunder. They had been fighting a tangent gang of the Wild Bunch.
Although Mari and Louis explained that the places they had hit the night before, the casino and the drugs places, were still part of the Wild Bunch. So while Shaggy hadn’t completely been wrong, his aim was a little off. But he counted their defeat of George’s Lampers as a win. At least they had hobbled the Wild Bunch. Somewhat.
Levy rubbed her eyes as the pink pixie flitted across her shoulders. The tiny flying woman was staring daggers at Shaggy and rubbing Levy’s shoulder gently. Shaggy shrugged in confusion. He didn’t know what the little punk pixie’s problem was. But the tiny girl had been throwing him bad looks the entire trip. When they got back, the little terror blinked out of existence. Making Shaggy think she was just on loan from the Fae Realm. But then the pixie had come back and taken semi-permanent residence on his wife’s shoulder.
“Does anyone have an actual map of the area?” Levy asked, sighing.
She gave the pixie an affectionate pat on the head as she looked around. Shaggy merely shrugged as the others all looked at each other. Eventually, Sybil and Mari both ran off to find a map in the piles of stuff their little crew had accumulated. Meanwhile, Shaggy had his own questions for his wife. Some of which she had stayed annoyingly quiet about.
“So, Levy…”
His wife held out a hand in a stop motion. “I’m sorry. But I can’t say what went on in the Realm of Fae. I made a magically binding oath and if I don’t adhere to it, nasty shit will happen.”
Shaggy slammed his jaw shut and harrumphed. Levy sidled up to him and gave him a quick side-hug.
“Hey. Don’t worry, dear. It wasn’t really anything interesting, anyway. Just a quick trip there and back.”
“Yeah, except it seems your cargo stuck around.” Shaggy said, nodding at the tiny pixie.
Levy looked down at her shoulder as the little pink pixie in jeans shot Shaggy the finger. Levy smiled as Shaggy stuck his tongue out at the precocious punk.
“She’s offered to help. It took some convincing, but she finally agreed to bond with me. Which comes with some pretty cool things.”
Shaggy raised an eyebrow in question. But his wife merely grinned. She apparently wanted it to be a surprise. Shaggy growled in his throat. Which sent the pixie into a flurry. It dashed across the air rapidly in front of Levy. Pink light flashing this way and that as it carved a pink sigil in the air.
“Oh, stop that. He’s my husband.” Levy said, swishing her hand through the forming symbol.
The light from the symbol dissipated as Levy wiped it away. But Shaggy could feel his teeth rattle as whatever magic the pixie was forming was released. He glared at the tiny woman. But the black-haired woman was staring shocked at Levy. She squeaked rapidly in her weird language as she stomped a foot and pointed at Shaggy.
“I don’t think she likes ya, boss,” Vick said.
Shaggy sneered at his pack as they chortled. They were all seated on the porch, happily eating sandwiches and taking the odd verbal jab at Shaggy. He had ignored them. Mostly out of the goodwill they had accrued by springing him. But Shaggy figured the goodwill was gone by now.
“Don’t you lot have shit to do? Kids to train, or a Deli to reinforce? Maybe you could even take a scouting party up and see what’s left up top?”
His pack all shrugged at him and didn’t budge. Shaggy rubbed his face. But Dave stood from the porch and gave Shaggy’s shoulder a punch.
“Oh, come on! They deserve a break. They got you out of that prison van, right? Besides, you’ve seen the streets. Drones and cops are all over the place. They're gonna be cleaning up the Lampers’ mess for a few days. We have time to relax and build up this place now.”
“We need resources.” Shaggy argued. “I mean, we have a huge amount of credits from the casino and we can use the trees. But there are still some things we can only get topside.”
“Maybe. But, dude, we can’t risk getting anymore people caught. I mean, hitting the prison van sounded pretty epic. But it sent the cops around here into overdrive. I’m pretty sure a curfew has been called for this neighborhood after the Stampede thing. Which means there is a bigger chance we get caught. So let’s hole up, wait it out a little. Maybe go check on Under-Town.”
“How are we going to do that, Dave? If we can’t travel overground? Dig our way there? That takes money. Which means we need to hit another casino or something.”
Dave placed both of his hands on Shaggy’s shoulders and bent his knees slightly to look Shaggy in the eye. “Dude... I need you to calm down, okay? We’ll be fine. Alright, your wife can…”
Dave trailed off as Levy's tall, slim figure interposed itself between them. She glared at Dave. But the happy-go-lucky guy just shrugged and returned to his seat next to Vick. Shaggy watched the exchange and sighed.
“Levy… You know I hate surprises.”
“And you know I hate returning to my original realm to find my husband incarcerated.”
Shaggy threw his hands up. “How often does that happen?!”
“It’s happened twice, love. Which, while impressive, is also alarming.”
“Wha…?” Shaggy racked his brain for the other time he had been arrested in a game.
Surprisingly, it happened often. Shaggy twisted his head in confusion as he mentally thought of all the games they’d played together. It wasn’t a small number, and he had been arrested or somehow imprisoned in a majority of them. When Shaggy looked back up at Levy, he found her grinning at him and sputtered.
“That’s not the point! What are you hiding? Can you get us to Under-Town with magic?”
Levy ignored him as footsteps came thudding toward them. Mari and Sybil had returned. Each carrying something. Mari had a slim metal datapad, while Sybil had gone with a more old school with a paper map. While Mari brought up a tiny blue hologram of Austin. Sybil did the same on the dirt floor.
“So, here we are, smack in the middle of Brentwood. That’s LAMPER turf.” Mari said. Enunciating ‘Lamper,’ slowly. “Now the Wild Bunch, as a whole, controls all Rosedale, Allandale, and they are pushing into Crestview.”
“They had four neighborhoods?!” Shaggy almost shouted.
“Now do you see why we thought hitting them was a bad idea?” Louis shouted back. “We could’ve sniped at George and his thugs for weeks and been left relatively alone. But your dumbass had to go filling everyone’s heads with bullshit. Now we’re fucked!”
Rita slapped a hand on Louis’ shoulder hard. “Calm down, kid. NOW! Sure, they're big. But that probably means they are also slow. We just essentially took out the Lampers. So if we can get our shit together quickly, we may be able to salvage this.”
“How?” Stanley asked. “We don’t have the manpower to patrol and manage all of Brentwood.”
“So we don’t.” Shaggy said. “We protect what we can and let the other gangs fight over everything else. We have people moving into our neighborhood, anyway. Monpund the store owner and Kek’zar the weapons guy. We protect those assets and let the chips fall where they may.”
“With what people? There’s less than thirty of us,” Tom asked.
Shaggy went quiet and tried to think. Their problems always came down to numbers. They’d actually secured a foothold up top. Even if it was only because Shaggy had mistakenly taken a run at a multi-district gang that probably could’ve squashed them at any moment. But now it was time to call in the others. He knew they probably had their own problems, but they needed grunts. And if there was one thing Under-Town had in spades, it was a bunch of down on their luck thugs looking to steal some shit.
Sudden movement from Shaggy’s side made him look back at his wife. Levy was shuffling back and forth in the dirt, hands on her hips. Smiling widely. Shaggy groaned. He had hoped she had forgotten about this. His pack chuckled as Levy continued to dance in his face.
“Really?”
Levy didn’t miss a step. “You fucked up. You get the dance.”
“We have a serious issue here, Levy. I mean, fine. We keep our heads down and try to build this place up. But we need people and resources. If we can’t go topside, how are we going to do that?”
Levy spun in place as she smiled. From her shoulder, the pink pixie glowed and a shimmering purple portal appeared at Levy’s shoulder. Shaggy watched as his wife dipped her head into the portal up to her neck. A quiet pop next to him made him look down to see his wife’s face smiling up at him from another portal.
“Portals Motherfucker! I got’em!”
Shaggy raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Levy’s smile disappeared, and she yanked her head out of the portal. She placed her hands on her hips and shook her hair out of her face. When Shaggy still didn’t respond, Levy threw up her hands.
“Come on! This is awesome!”
“Yes, it is. But you were expecting a massive reaction and I’m not playing into that.” Shaggy smiled.
Levy huffed and then went back to dancing. She kept her glare on Shaggy as she spun around and Shaggy turned back to Rita and the others. “So she can get us a portal back to Under-Town?”
Rita started to answer, but Levy cut in roughly. “Yes! SHE can. But there’s going to be an issue.”
Shaggy turned back to his wife and watched as she danced around him angrily. He motioned for her to continue and after a quick pirouette; she did.
“I’m gonna need the crystal that powers things around here. It’s going to act as a focus as me and… Pixie do our thing.”
“Pixie?” Shaggy asked as he looked at the creature on his wife’s shoulder.
For the first time, he realized he hadn’t asked her about the little fae creature’s name. He also noticed that the thing was happily mimicking his wife’s dance. Spinning and gyrating on the taller woman’s shoulder. He glanced between the two women as they both danced. Levy looked worriedly down at her shoulder as she did some weird side-shuffle thing.
“Uhh, names are powerful things for some Fae. So she doesn’t want too many people to have it.”
The little pixie squeaked from her perch on Levy’s shoulder. She was doing the same weird dance maneuver but staring daggers at Shaggy. Levy finally removed her glare from Shaggy down to her shoulder. Willing the little pixie to look at her. The two shared a glare for a few seconds before Levy let out a sigh.
“She doesn’t want you to have it, dear.”
Shaggy pointed a finger at his face and adopted a ‘who, me?’ look. When Levy nodded, Shaggy glared at the tiny Pixie.
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“What the hell did I do?”
Levy sighed again as the Pixie squeaked. “She says you are an abomination. You're not a wolf or a man, but you’re somehow both. At least the magical type of Were is at least partially a part of nature. But you are a Mutant.”
“Oh great. A racist Pixie. Wonderful.”
The squeaking went into overdrive as Stanley spoke up from behind Shaggy. “I think it’s more speciesism, boss.”
“Whatever it is, it’s fucked up.”
The little pink and purple pixie squeaked herself hoarse before Levy finally stopped dancing and translated. “She claims it’s not her fault. You just feel wrong to her. She can feel your wolf and you at the same time. So it gives her a headache. Also, your demonic power is unsettling. But she is vehement that she is not a racist or anything else.”
Shaggy rubbed his eyes. “Okay. Whatever. So we need to use our magical generator thing in order to create a portal between here and Under-Town. Once we do that, we can get some power Lackeys up here and we can make a push into Brentwood.”
“Dude, don’t forget the others are fighting their own gang war. I mean, it was mostly political when I left. But who knows how things are now?” Dave said.
“It can’t be that bad. It’s been what? A few days? How fucked can things be down there?”
Dave shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s the Quinica we’re talking about. So probably a little fucked.”
Shaggy wobbled his head in agreement. Dave wasn’t wrong. Who knows what the cryptic space-vamps were up to? But at least after the portal was set up, they would have more space for them to grow into. The cavern they were in was mostly empty save for the growing trees and the grass that was reaching the cavern walls. Looking at the trees, Shaggy asked.
“Will we lose the crystal? Isn’t it powering some of the growth down here?”
Levy turned from the quiet conversation she was having with the Pixie. “Not some of the growth. It is powering all of it and yes, it will stop when we make the portal. But if some of my magic-users are at the Den, we may be able to find us a replacement. It’ll be expensive, but we could just steal one from somewhere.”
“So we lose our power generator here, but we connect our two bases. We’ll lose the magical regrowing trees, and the lights will go out. But we’ll have access to more people. Not to mention a fallback spot if either of our gang wars spills over.”
“Well, dude, you're not really engaged in a Gang War out here. The Legion is.” Dave said as he brushed his hands off and stood again.
“What?”
“The legion can only engage in one ‘official’ Gang War. So when Vlad and the others went to war with the space vamps, that was it.”
Shaggy tilted his head, confused. “Okay. So what? What does waging an ‘official’ war mean?”
Dave shrugged again. “I don’t know. But little dude said it was better if the system acknowledges the war.”
Shaggy groaned as he threw his head back and closed his eyes. Levy placed a hand on his shoulder and placed a kiss on his cheek. At least he hoped it was Levy. Shaggy quickly opened his eyes and found his wife’s purple ones looking into his.
“Who’d you think it was?” She smirked.
“Pass.” Shaggy said as he kissed her back. “So we barely chopped an arm off our enemy, went from working with to running from the cops, missed out on whatever system rewards we’d get for an ‘official’ Gang War, and now we’ll lose this base’s power supply. Have I got all that right?”
Shaggy looked at his group of friends and pack mates. Levy shrugged and gave his arm another pat. Dave stuck out a hand and wobble it back and forth. Only mildly agreeing, apparently. But his pack all looked outright affronted.
“Boss! We’re all werewolves now.”
“Also, we have a base of our own.”
“And we added two more to the pack.”
“I can throw fire!”
“Pack is good.”
“I’m just happy to be here.”
“Pull your head out of your ass.”
Shaggy threw Ephemara’s glare back at her, but silently agreed. Then he remembered she could feel his thoughts. A wide smirk appeared on her face and Shaggy hastened his thoughts to what they had recently accomplished. Yes, his goals were blown all to hell. But they had some fun adventures and made some decent gains. But now it was time to get back home.
They could reassess with the others. Maybe help with the real gang war. Move some stuff around logistically and maybe get these kids squared away. Shaggy looked around as he thought of the kids. Most were in their dormitory, chilling or sleeping. But a few were out and about moving food and stoking fires. He rubbed his face, and he thought about explaining to them what was going to happen.
Rita stood as she finished what had to be her fourth sandwich. “I’ll round them up, boss. Better to do it now than wait.”
Shaggy groaned again. But agreed. The kids needed to know what they were going to be thrown into next. Louis and Mari followed her. Louis throwing Shaggy a dirty look. Shaggy threw the kid a cheeky grin, but said nothing. Kid was becoming a bigger pain in the ass than Mari. He sighed and sat down on the porch. He noticed Levy was talking to the Pixie again. Hoping for good news, he asked.
“Does she have an idea to help keep our crystal?”
“Huh?” Levy asked. “Oh. No, we were just going over the spell. We figured we could get that prepared while you're talking to your child soldiers.”
“Hey!” Shaggy shouted, affronted. “Their OUR child soldiers.”
“HA HA! Just make sure you tell them what Under-Town is like. These kids have had it rough. But Under-Town is a whole other beast.”
“You were down there for a few hours.”
“And that was already an eye-opener. Just give them the option. Topside can be a good testing ground for the less militant of our organization.”
“I love when you call it OUR organization.”
“What’s yours is mine, love.” Levy said before sashaying away.
Shaggy looked over to Dave to see the other player staring blankly at the air in front of him. He was obviously fiddling with his menus. When he came out of it, he smiled at Shaggy.
“Dude, you don’t mind if I post our ape fight onto the forums, right?”
Shaggy shrugged. “I honestly figured you already had. You recorded the whole riot, right?”
“From beginning to end, my dude. I’ve just been slowly editing things down. I didn’t want to reveal too much about where we were or anything else about us. But things are ready to go. I just need to hit send. The fight with George of the Jungle was pretty epic dude. Not to mention your whole demon wolf thing. So gnarly, dude.”
Shaggy nodded. “You didn’t record my shift, did you?”
“Naw. Purple dude slammed me into a building, so I missed it. I cut around it. But one second you can see you standing in the street, fighting tree-lady. Then it all goes dark and when we come back up, you’re replaced with a big ass wolf. So I figure most people are going to figure out what happened. Were you trying to keep it a secret?”
Shaggy gave a noncommittal head wiggle. “I don’t know. I just haven’t been using it much topside. But showing other players what you can do is always a crapshoot. You never know when some jumped up Player-Killer is going to try to gank you.”
Dave shrugged as he went back to fiddling with his menus. Shaggy smiled at his friend as he saw Rita leading the teens his way. Just beyond her was Levy, standing at the terminal and rapidly tapping away at its surface. A sudden thought hit Shaggy, and he turned to the rest of his pack.
“We’re going to need light when the crystal goes down. Can you lot start fires and grab flashlights or something?”
Sybil grinned happily as her fist was engulfed in green flame. Shaggy sighed and sent her a mental note not to burn all the trees down. Cekrass, Stanley, Tom, and Vick ran off to follow his orders. But Ephemara stayed near him. As the kids got close, she dragged him to his feet and brushed off his shoulders. Shaggy thought he heard Dave snort, but he ignored it as he cocked an eyebrow at Ephemara.
“Someone needs to be next to you, boss. As you give whatever speech you’re about to. Just in case you fuck things up.”
“And you pulled the short straw.”
Ephemara snorted as she checked him over. He hadn’t grabbed anything fancy from his stash of clothes. Just another white shirt and jeans. He had spoken briefly to Levy about getting some enchanted clothes. But it was only a quick conversation. Ephemara seemed to find his attire satisfactory. As she gave a nod and turned him toward the approaching crowd of teens.
Shaggy immediately spotted Luis talking animatedly to Dragan and Ulf. But both brothers were shaking their heads. Louis didn’t seem to like that as he stomped off toward Branka and a few others. But the large girl waved him off, not even listening to what the kid wanted to say. Shaggy smiled. At least the little shits were loyal enough to listen.
Shaggy cleared his throat, gathering everyone’s attention. When he had it, he started talking. He hadn’t really planned any big speech. But he felt the moment needed something. So he winged it.
“So… I fucked up.” Shaggy chuckled dryly. “I took a swing at a giant and barely got his legs. Sure, we came away with a lot of gains. But I think mostly what I did was create a power-vacuum and paint a target on our backs. However, that does not mean I am going to stop. I had big plans for us topside and those plans haven’t changed. They’ve just been delayed.”
Shaggy took a breath and a male voice spoke up. Shaggy thought it was Otto. “What does that mean?”
“Well…” Shaggy rubbed the back of his neck. “It means we are going to have to lie low for a while. I know that’s kind of what we were doing. But with the Stampede and my pack breaking me out of police custody. A lot of people are going to want a piece of us. So we are going to take a step back…”
“So we’re hiding?” Branka asked aggressively.
Shaggy felt his wolf balk at the notion, but he squashed it quickly. “Nope. We’re just moving to a different front. As some of you know, we are part of a large organization in Under-Town. The rest of our crew are currently engaged in a war of their own with those Space-vamps you have seen. So while things cool off down here, we are all going to shift down there.”
“So y’all are moving? What happens to the rest of us?” Yelena asked.
“Well, we hoped you’d come with us. My wife is going to create a portal to our base in Under-Town and when that’s done, were are all going to move that way. But I felt the need to warn you that Under-Town can be pretty rough. I know a lot of you have already had some tough lives, but Under-Town is a criminal city made for and run by criminals. It’s a whole new ballpark. So I just want you all to be aware of what you’re getting into.”
“And what if we don’t want to go? Huh!? You going to make us?” Louis shouted, clearly angry.
Before Shaggy could say anything, though, Mari was suddenly beside Louis. “Shut up! You fucking idiot. We all know enough to know they ain’t going to do that. But what if they did? His entire crew could tear through every one of us and we all know it. Stop being a butt-hurt bitch and go sit down.”
Louis glared at everyone of them before he turned and walked back toward the dormitory. Mari gave Shaggy a smiled and waved for him to continue. Shaggy gave the small girl a quick salute. “To answer the question, no. None of you are stuck with us and you can leave at any time. In fact, I’d recommend that most of you stay here and make small trips to Under-Town in order to get acclimated. This is still your home as long as you want it to be. Levy and I well be continually growing this space out. You’re just going to have a few rougher people passing through.”
“This all sounds good. But why did you have to wake us up for this?” Ulf grumbled, rubbing his eyes.
Shaggy waved a hand toward his wife standing at the back near the terminal. “Levy is going to create the portal. But when she does, the magic crystal powering things down here is going to be diverted to powering the portal. So all the stuff down here that is running on its power is going to die. Along with the light in the sky. So we just wanted you to be prepared.”
“That must be why the crazy bitch is setting fires.” Branka said, none too quietly.
Shaggy saw Cekrass and Stanley grab the short blonde woman before she could toss a fireball at Branka. He coughed as he ignored Branka’s words.
“So grab a flashlight. We’re about to do this.”
“Where is the Portal going to dump us out at?” someone asked.
Shaggy shrugged. “I don’t know. But I’m thinking close to our bar down in Under-Town. I think you kids will like it. Plenty of booze, food and fights to go around. But overall it’s just a chill place to relax.”
There was a general murmur of excitement as his pack handed out torches and flashlights. Shaggy checked everyone's faces before he glanced back at his wife. Levy was looking at him with a question in her eyes. When he nodded, Levy wiggled happily before she tapped a few buttons on the terminal.
The pink crystal in the sky disappeared and reappeared in Levy’s hands. Immediately, the whole cave was thrown into darkness and Levy started loudly chanted a spell. The murmurs from the kids quieted as they all huddled together. Shaggy kept his eyes trained on Levy and had his pack watch over the kids. Everyone of them had dark-vision, so it was easy to corral everyone.
Levy’s voice pitched higher and Shaggy could see the small pink glow of the pixie flit about his wife’s body. The cave seemed to shake as the air became tense. Shaggy felt his ears pop as a rush of wind swept across their cave. Blowing dust and debris on everyone. Whatever magical forces were in the air swirled around, and a massive pink portal carved itself next to Shaggy’s cabin. The portal expanded, growing wider and wider as Levy continued to chant nonsensically. The pink ring around the portal grew and grew until it was taller than Shaggy’s house and almost as wide.
Shaggy felt his eyebrows crawl up his head as the wind seemed to still. The teens loosed a collective breath as Levy finally finished her incantation. The dark of the cave seemed to hum with energy as the portal stabilized. Levy was on her feet and running for the portal, so Shaggy quickly joined her. The two met right next to the black maw of the portal, and Shaggy peered into its inky blackness as Levy cheered.
“Holy fuck, it worked!”
“You weren’t sure?!” Shaggy noticed the Pixie was unconscious on his wife’s shoulder again.
“Of course I wasn’t. It’s not like I do that often. But we weren’t sure if the crystal had the juice. But it was what that Jerruza lady was going to do with the crystal. So we figured we had an even chance.”
“So this leads straight to our bar?”
“It should. I got a notification saying that someone accepted the hook on the other side. So we should pop out in the safest place near or in the bar,” Levy explained.
Shaggy nodded and turned to tell everyone he was going to do a quick test. But he found everyone was already crowding near the large portal. Shaggy sighed and gave a shout.
“Everyone, keep their heads and try not to attack anyone who doesn’t attack you. Like I said, we should drop into our territory. So things should be relatively calm for Under-Town.”
He saw the teens and his pack nod as one. Shaggy stifled a laugh at the sight as he turned back to the portal. Levy was already standing next to it, her arm halfway through. He groaned.
“This is so wicked.” Levy smiled.
“Come on then. Together.”
“Always, dear.”
He and Levy linked arms and took a giant step forward into the inky blackness. There was a moment of vertigo, and Shaggy’s stomach dropped. He felt his feet hit the ground, and he stumbled a bit before he caught himself. Fresh scents and sounds filled his senses as his mind tried to orient to its new space. Shaggy tried to shake the noises from his head, then he noticed they were the sounds of shouting and laser fire.
As his vision came back, he saw he was standing on the stage of the Viper’s Den. Multiple Lackeys were at the front windows and the main door, firing energy weapons into the square outside. Someone outside was returning fire into the bar, and fighting could be heard all around. Multiple black clouds of mist rushed across the bar floor. Pale people stepped out of the mist and handed off energy containers to shooters on both the main and second floor. A laser beam cut into the bar and barely missed Levy as she stumbled around. Shaggy put himself between his wife and any more incoming fire.
He felt his pack rushing through the gate as a shout came from the front of the building. Slink was seated near the right side window of the bar. An energy rifle lay next to the pale kid, blood spilling from a wound on his shoulder. Petra loaded another battery into Slink’s rifle as he caught Shaggy’s eye.
“Hurry the fuck up and get out there!” Slink ordered, pointing outside the bar.
Shaggy looked back at Levy and saw his wife’s hands glowing with magic. She gave him a quick nod as the pack and the teens rushed out of the portal. Shaggy connected to his pack link and felt himself come alive as he shifted his hands into claws. Ephemara and Stanley were a little slower to catch on, but the rest of his pack charged with him. They rushed toward the front door and windows. Shaggy felt himself smile as he threw himself out the front door and into Under-Town again. His pack rushing at his side.