By the time they made it back to the Viper’s Square, the Lackeys were already cleaning the place up. Bodies and debris littered the field. Shaggy could see that more than a few of the bodies were not the pale white of the Quinica. He wondered how many people they had lost and how that would affect things overall. But the slowly growing pile of Quinica corpses made him think it was worth it. They had given as good as they got.

Shaggy started to send a mental command to his pack to help and to check on the teens. But Rita was already moving past him. Behind her, Stanley and the others were looting everybody they could find. Shaggy grinned. It was good when your people anticipated your wants. He heard Rita snort as she made her way to the bar.

“I just wanna check on the kids, boss.”

“Sure, sure. See what the damage is inside while you’re at it,” Shaggy called back.

“No shit.”

Shaggy grinned and shook his head as he turned back to Vlad. The Vampire player was grinning back. With a snap of his fingers and a whoosh of black smoke, a pale man appeared at Vlad’s side. The man offered Vlad a red drink in a slim wine glass, bowing at the waist and not making eye contact. Vlad took the drink and waved the man away as he smiled at Shaggy.

“Good help is so hard to find these days, huh?”

“Pfft! My crew is a Pack, not servants. Be careful about having things done for you. Eventually, you’ll forget how to do anything.”

Vlad’s grin grew wider, but the vampire slowly backing away at his side glared at Shaggy. The pale, dark-haired man bared his fangs at Shaggy and hissed. Shaggy snorted again and waved the little shit away. Vlad also urgently waved a hand, probably worried the NPC would try something. Once the guy was gone, they both headed toward the bar.

“They expect to serve, Shags. It’s not my fault.” Vlad said, taking a sip from his wineglass.

“Oh, I’m sure. Never mind the obvious benefits.”

Shaggy shook his head and rolled his eyes. His friend was obviously living it up with his new baby vamps. Off in the distance he saw Ren, the large Perinadon was tossing bits of broken houses into a pile along with several other large aliens. Nearby Dave was happily chatting with a few Lackeys as they all piled bodies away from the Den. Shaggy didn’t see Slink anywhere, but he assumed the young boy was inside handling the logistics. As he often did.

Shaggy noted that most of the surrounding buildings were okay. A few were missing walls here and there, but things still looked good. In fact, there were actual shops surrounding the small plaza. They had some decently built shacks and people were slowly pushing bodies from their front steps. Vlad saw him looking and chuckled.

“Hehehe, yeah. The square’s doing alright. We attracted a few business owners and got them set up in the area. Not all of them are here, but they all pay a tithe for protection and other services.”

Shaggy raised an eyebrow. “Other services?”

“It’s Under-Town. Someone always wants something. Maybe they want someone tuned up a bit, or maybe they want some piece of tech from up top. They pay us a premium and we send one of the boys. It’s extra to send one of my Thralls or Ren’s Bruisers. But, so far, everyone pays. Since we took the tunnel to the Austin from the Quinica, more and more people around here are taking us seriously.”

Shaggy did a double-take. “You took the tunnel?”

“Yeah, after the third Parley. It was a fucking hassle and a half. Not taking the checkpoint, but going through all the UGB rigmarole. They act like the world’s most anal-retentive government. All forms in triplicate, attacks filed in writing weeks in advance. They’ve turned a gang war into a corporate takeover.”

“But we can hold it?” Shaggy asked.

Vlad waved a hand dismissively. “Oh yeah, we got the Brute clan helping with security and I’ve stationed a few of my Thralls there.”

They arrived at the front of the bar and Shaggy looked around. Blurs of black mist swirled in the air. Picking up bits of wood and debris and taking it back inside. There was even a pale woman with a broom collecting the bits of broken glass into a pile. When she finished, she waved to a magenta-robed woman who waved her hands. The glass took on a yellow glow and knit itself back together before floating toward the front of the bar. The window set itself back in the wall and the two women high-five’d before moving on to do something else.

“How many of those damn Thralls do you have?”

Vlad finished his wine glass of blood and tossed it casually over his shoulder. A black mist blurred past and snapped the glass out of the air before rushing inside. Vlad stayed nonchalant as he entered the bar, calling over his shoulder.

“I don’t know. It was at thirty, I think, but after this brief scuffle it’s probably less.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be tougher?”

Shaggy followed his friend inside, where even more people were cleaning up and tending to the wounded. Shaggy saw Rashi and her sisters moving about the crowd, looking at everyone’s wounds. The woman barely spared him a glance before she continued her work. Petra was behind the bar, taking inventory, it seemed. While Slink was holding court at a round table. Shaggy noticed most of his kids were there, along with Rita. He would have to check on that soon.

Vlad found them a table and sat down. Shaggy glanced back to Slink and then to Vlad again. A question in his eyes. His friend waved him down.

“We’ll get to Slink. But first, I want to know how shit went topside. You said in your message that you were getting us a foothold topside?”

“Yeah…” Shaggy drug the word out as he took a seat and tried to collect his thoughts.

Everything from trying to play the cops for some freedom topside to his misconception about the Wild Bunch flashed in his head. Not to mention his teens, the Pack’s advancements, and their brand new portal between their two bases. Shaggy started. He didn’t see the portal when he walked in. He quickly began searching the room, looking for the large pink-rimmed hole in the air. But it was nowhere to be seen. Vlad caught on to his mood and started looking around as well.

“What is it?”

Before Shaggy could answer, Ephemara shimmered into existence by his shoulder.

“Levy is finding a better place to anchor it with the Den’s mages, boss. She’ll be up in a bit.”

Shaggy felt his shoulders relax as he gave his second in command a nod. He reached for an empty glass on the table and raised it toward Ephemara. The pale woman glared at him, but he gave his best pleading face. She snorted and yanked the mug from his hand before stomping off. Returning to Vlad, Shaggy shrugged and explained.

“We had a portal from our my base to this one. We popped out right on the stage. Apparently, my wife is getting anchored somewhere less conspicuous.”

“We’ve got a portal to above ground?! That’s huge!” Vlad said excitedly.

Shaggy waved him down. “Calm down, it’s not that great a thing, really. The cops are going to be watching the place for a few days.”

“I thought you had an in with the cops?”

“Yeah, that went to shit a few days into the arrangement. So we had to flee below ground.”

Vlad raised an eyebrow. Concern and irritation warring on his face. Eventually, it settled into general curiosity. Ephemara arrived and slammed a mug down on the table, sloshing beer everywhere. Shaggy looked at her gratefully, but she merely held out a hand and made a ‘gimme’ gesture. Shaggy grumbled but reached into a pocket and placed a few credits into her hand. She gave him a dirty look, but stomped away after taking her money.

“It’s a long story…” Shaggy started

He explained everything that had happened since he went above ground with his wife and pack. The fallout with Xelthub, meeting Louis and Mari, confronting the Lampers, expanding his pack, and the final clash with the Quinica and George's group.

Vlad sat in silence, listening intently. Occasionally one of his Thralls would come by and offer a glass of blood which the player would down. Almost without looking. Shaggy couldn’t read the impassive face of his vampire friend. But he felt like the guy was pissed. However, contrary to his feelings, Vlad merely sighed when he was done.

“Whew… You are an absolute menace. A menace that attracts opportunity like an anime protagonist. But a menace nonetheless. You realize we can’t fight a war on two fronts, right? I mean, recruitment has been going very well. It will probably pickup now that Dave is back. But we just don’t have the people to defend two bases.”

“Yeah. But we don’t have to defend the other one. The maintenance tunnels lead into other businesses. The trouble is, the cops know what my crew and the kids look like. But if we have some lackeys go up, use the other exits. They can look around for us and even use it as a shortcut to get down here. Meanwhile, Levy and I build up our little love nest.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Vlad raised a sharp eyebrow. “Really? That’s all you’re going to do with the space? I haven’t seen it, but we could put some businesses in there. Maybe make some VIP housing for our top Lackeys and Henchmen.”

Shaggy felt his face twist in apprehension. It wasn’t a bad idea. “I’d have to talk to my wife.”

“Talk to me about what?” Levy’s soft voice pierced Shaggy’s ears, and he looked up from his seat.

Levy was approaching, a tired look on her face and sweat collecting on her brow. The pixie was resting on her shoulder. A pink ball of light that rose and fell with Levy’s steps. She took a seat next to Shaggy and grabbed his drink. Taking a big gulp of the beer. Her face twisted at the taste and she quickly gulped down what she had in her mouth.

“Belgh! That’s… not good.”

Shaggy shrugged. “It’s what we got, babe.”

Levy stuck her tongue out and shook her head. Trying to shake the taste off. Vlad watched the byplay and waited for an introduction politely. Shaggy waved a hand at his friend and said imperiously.

“Love, I’d like you to meet another of our Legion’s leaders, Vlad. He runs the vampire contingent of this little enterprise. He is also our unofficial negotiator.”

“Not by choice.” Vlad muttered as he raised his wineglass in salute.

Levy’s eye grew wide. “Is that wine?!”

Vlad smirked as he swirled the thick red liquid and showed off his fangs. “Nope.”

“Vampire, honey. Remember?”

Levy sighed as she slumped in her seat. “A woman can dream, can’t she?”

“We can see about getting some wine down here on a shipment or two. Although I don’t think the crowd down here will go for it. Under-Town seems to be a Burger and Beer kind of town.” Shaggy chuckled.

“I don’t know, Shags. People can surprise you. I mean, look at you. Somehow, you wound up with this one.” Vlad said, sticking a thumb at Levy.

Shaggy rolled his eyes as Levy grinned at them both. “I like him, Shaggy. Even with the creepy blood-drinking thing.”

“Bah! Like you care about the blood drinking.”

“Why couldn’t it be wine!?” Levy asked aggressively. “I’d take a damn bottle of water right now. Moving that portal was a pain in the ass. Not as much as creating it, but still…”

She trailed off as someone put a bottle of water in her hand. All three of them looked up to see Ephemara standing there. She looked at all three of them for a second before she walked away. Shaggy sighed and reached into his pocket again. But Ephemara stopped him.

“Gee, Boss. You wouldn’t be about to insult me by paying me to serve you? Would you? That wouldn’t be right. We’re friends and I Levy is precious to the entire pack.”

“Yes, dear, don’t insult the woman.” Levy snickered as she unscrewed her water bottle.

Shaggy gave them both the stink eye as Ephemara walked away. When she was sure Levy wasn’t watching, the disappearing woman threw Shaggy the finger. He felt his eye twitch as he turned back toward Vlad. The pale man was biting his lip, trying not to laugh at the byplay. Shaggy groaned internally before saying.

“Dear, Vlad was wondering if we should change our little love nest to include some of the more loyal of the Crew.”

Levy chugged half her bottle of water before she came up for air. “Pah! That sounds fine. We’d have to expand the space. The forest is ours. But what the rest of the Legion does with it is up to them.”

“Forest?” Vlad mouthed at Shaggy.

Shaggy shrugged as he thought about the space. “We could push the eastern wall back further. There are not any tunnels in that direction. Of course, that means the view from our pool is going to be marred.”

“It was already atrocious thanks to the massive dirt wall, Shaggy. At least if we add some housing, there will be something to look at.”

Shaggy nodded in agreement as he gave Vlad a satisfied look. The vampire was staring at the two of them.

“I feel you are both going to be a massive headache.” He said.

Shaggy grinned, and he looked to see a similar smile on his wife’s face. “We promise to deal with as much trouble as we create. Now I believe we need to have a conversation about logistics.”

Vlad gulped his blood down and nodded. “I know just the guy.”

They both stood, followed shortly by Levy, who grabbed her water bottle and followed. The bar was quickly filling up with Lackey’s. But most gave them a wide berth as they made their way to Slink’s table. The boy was looking haggard as he spotted Shaggy and Vlad. Shaggy wondered at the put-upon expression on the boy’s face. But then he heard all the teens.

“So you’re, like, a leader in the organization?”

“How old are you?”

“What’s your power?”

“If I kick your ass, can I take your spot?”

“Is that a snake in your trousers, or are you just happy to see us?”

Slink’s face was growing more and more red. Rita was standing nearby, clearly trying not to laugh as all the teens bombarded Slink with questions. Shaggy gave the older woman an inquisitive look, but all he got back was a self-satisfied feeling over the link. He didn’t know what the kid had done to piss the woman off. But, apparently, she would not save him.

“Ahem!” Shaggy coughed, getting everyone’s attention. “You all have other jobs you need to be doing.”

All the teens grumbled at him, but started to disperse. As Mari walked by him, Shaggy stuck a hand out.

“I need you to go back through the portal and check on Louis. The dude stayed behind and given how ‘butt-hurt’ he was. I don’t know if I trust him alone.”

Mari looked like she wanted to argue. But she thought better of it as she moved toward the stage.

“I moved it downstairs, sweet one. It’s in a room downstairs off the main hallway.”

“I’ll go with her.” Rita said, already moving.

As more of the kids left his table, Slink slumped in his chair and started collecting the stacks of paper on the table. At Shaggy’s questioning gaze, Slink explained.

“After-action reports from scouts and random Lackeys. I need to get them inputted into the War Table. But I thought I’d go through them for myself first.”

Shaggy shrugged as he, Levy, and Vlad sat. “What’s it look like?”

Slink blew out a breath. “We didn’t do too bad. Your team’s timely arrival surely tipped the scales. But we were on our way to winning, anyway. Although that would’ve cost us more grunts.”

He turned to Vlad. “I want to get Dave back to training everyone. His core group has been doing fantastic. Meanwhile, I’ll get some lackeys working on Roald’s shop.”

“Roald? I thought he was on the Quinica’s side.”

“Defector.” Vlad stated. “It started this whole mess. The kid wasn’t happy with the Quinica arrangement, so he thought he could just switch sides. Next thing we know, the Quinica are calling us out for poaching one of their weapon makers. Shit escalated, and we called a Gang War. So now we are in this for the long haul.”

“What do you mean?” Levy asked, giving Slink a quick wave.

Shaggy grinned at how the kid’s ears went red at the attention. Slink quickly rallied himself and explained.

“The terms of the Gang War were complete annihilation of the opposing force’s leadership. We figured that would be the easiest way to win. Shaggy was topside. Away from all this, and the Quinica only had a few leaders. There were reports that some bigwig was coming down to straighten out the Quinica. But come to find out it’s an entire entourage of Elders. All of whom count as Quinica leadership.”

“Yeesh.” Shaggy exclaimed. Vlad nodded as Slink went on.

“So we started aiming at the Elders. Testing their silver armor and figuring out how to take them down.”

“Oh yeah, one of my pack is a Quinica. Don’t kill him.” Shaggy said off-handily.

Vlad nearly leapt from his chair as Slink’s next words caught in his throat. Vlad sputtered for a bit and Shaggy saw multiple black swirls of mist quickly rushing this way. He felt his own pack close in toward him. But he put the kibosh on that. No need to wreck up the bar. Several pale figures popped out of their mist forms and hissed at Shaggy. But he stayed seated and casually drank from his mug as Vlad got his shit together.

Once Vlad stopped coughing and sputtering, he turned and gave a hiss of his own at his Thralls. The surrounding vampires all scattered like a bunch of cockroaches. Vlad adjusted his suit and picked his chair back up. Sitting, he glared at Shaggy.

“How?”

“Long story. But I told you I added two more to my pack, right? Ephemara and Stanley. Well, Stanley’s got the Quinica. Calls it Kev. Apparently, it’s like an elite variant of a normal Quinica.”

Shaggy kept his tone light as he explained. He emptied his beer mug and sighed happily at the aftertaste of beer on his tongue. It was never as good as real beer. But the virtual stuff wasn’t bad. Also, no shitty side-effects IRL. Although he wasn’t sure what would happen in-game if he wasn’t a Super. He’d have to ask his lizard friend.

“So how powerful is he?” Vlad asked.

Shaggy nodded happily. “Kid packs a punch. He’s one of my Pack’s powerhouses along with Cekrass, and Cekrass is a freaking Bruiser. I don’t want to guess at what the kid can do once he becomes a full Were.”

“Full Were?” Slink asked.

“It’s like my Thralls.” Vlad cut in. “Kind of an introductory stage to being an actual Vampire or Were. Their bodies have to prepare themselves for the change. Also, the Master or Pack Leader has to be powerful enough to control them all. At least that’s what I would guess.”

Shaggy nodded. “Pretty much it. Ephe and Stanley are in the pre-stages. But the rest of my Pack are full-on Weres…well, almost. They still haven’t had their first shift yet.”

“Why not?”

“We haven’t gotten around to it, okay? It’s been a hectic week.” Shaggy sighed. Then what he said caught up to him. “Shit, it’s only been like a week in-game, right?”

“Nine days by my count, love.” Levy said, rubbing his shoulders.

“Sonofabitch. So much has happened. Maybe we need to take a break.”

Vlad snorted. “Your little topside trip was supposed to be a break. Just you and your Pack out on the town. You damn near had us waging a war on two fronts.”

Slink sat up straighter. “Do what now?!”

Shaggy sighed again and rubbed his forehead. He started to re-explain their trip topside when a booming voice shook the whole damn bar.

“SHAGGY!!!”

Shaggy quickly rose to his feet and looked around. Was it the blood god coming to take back his power? Maybe Cog returned for a second go at Under-Town. Thundering footsteps interrupted his thoughts as the front doors of the bar were thrown open and Ren charged his way in. The large Rhino-man scanned the room before he spotted Shaggy and the others. He rushed forward, intent clear in his eyes. Shaggy wasn’t sure what he had done. But apparently the big man was pissed.