Shaggy wiped his knuckles on his pants and walked out of the last room in the hall. He didn’t want to opt for his claws when dealing with the UGB troops. He hadn’t needed to and cutting people to ribbons was probably becoming his signature. Not to mention it was an overly bloody affair. He didn’t need all that. Shaggy had punched his way through four of the rooms in the UGB base and his shirt had remained spotless and intact for once. A noteworthy achievement.

After leaving Frank’s body in the restroom, Shaggy moved to the nearest door and started working his way down the hall. He’d counted twelve shitty UGB guards in this underground bunker. Four in a bunk room by the restroom, and three in a kitchen area. Then there were two in the hall, probably investigating the noise. Finally, he had just finished three in what looked like a break area. None of them provided much of a challenge, really. Probably weren’t worth much in the way of points either.

Shaggy continued down the hallway. He had doubled back and checked the left end of the hall. But it was a dead-end full of cells, much like the one he and Vlad had woken in. No one in them, just the faint smell of chemicals and blood. Shaggy had walked back and ran into the two geniuses, trying to investigate with stun batons and energy pistols. Now, however, he could see a stairwell leading upward and two open doors ahead. One on the right and another slightly further ahead on the left.

He moved to the first door and peeked in. Inside was a large locker room. Rows of metal lockers were arranged around wooden benches on the floor. The sharp smell of fresh blood hit Shaggy’s nose and he grimaced. Vlad had probably come this way first. Which meant that the base was clear. Shaggy took a big whiff of the air and tried to discern the scents of the dead from those still alive. But all he got were the same vibrant colors of normal scents. He huffed.

Moving to the second door, Shaggy peered in and saw his friend sitting at a large computer console. The vampire’s long fingers played across the keyboard, typing away as he watched the screen. Three bodies were sprawled in the room. One was pale and collapsed on the floor with no visible wound. The other two were torn limb from limb. It looked like they had exploded from the torso. Shaggy sniffed.

“Taking out some aggression, are we?”

Vlad didn’t even turn around as he replied. “Your one to talk. You catch Frank?”

“Of course. Little shit didn’t even last ten punches.”

“You are surprisingly petty.”

“I don’t see how that’s a surprise.” Shaggy said as he moved next to Vlad and looked at the screens.

Long lists and invoices were thrown up on the screens as Vlad typed. Shaggy grimaced as he read over weapon and general goods shipments. It was a lot. Even their bar didn’t need this much food. Did the UGB have an even larger force? If so, why weren’t they out on the streets as much? Shaggy didn’t remember seeing many uniformed thugs out on the streets of Under-Town. But then again, he had been dealing with the Raks, and the Phreaks… and the Quinica.

“We got a personnel list?” Shaggy asked.

“I looked it over already. The numbers match, but their locations are written in an alpha-numeric code. It’s all Alpha-Sigma-Wincott-Zero-Zero-Nine is staffed by ten troops and needs these supplies.”

“Well, can we download this and get out of here? The information would be useful, but I have to think these people need to check in. So we don’t want to stay long.”

Vlad pointed a slim finger at a device on the far end of the console. Shaggy couldn’t tell what it was. But it was a square black box with a cord attached.

“They already called in and I gave them the call and response phrase. We’re checked in as All Clear. We’ve got six hours till the next check-in.”

“How the hell did you do that?!” Shaggy asked, surprised.

He looked down at the drained guard and the other two UGB troops. “Can you read memories from blood now?”

Vlad spun in his chair, surprised. “What?! No! The dumbasses wrote it down.”

He waved a hand at the desk. Shaggy saw a small yellow post-it with the call and response conversation listed in small hand-writing. He coughed awkwardly before looking back at Vlad. His vampire friend rolled his eyes and spun his chair back to the computer.

“As for downloading stuff, that takes another password. But that one is not written anywhere. At least anywhere that I’ve seen. There’s a cabinet by the door, but that was just holding weapons and armor. Speaking of which, why don’t you go collect as much of that stuff as you can?”

“Sure, there are probably some duffel bags in the locker room or something. We can stuff those with weapons and armor and then book it.”

“You do that. I want to see if I can get anything from this.”

Shaggy groaned. “Seriously, Vlad? You just said it was written in code. Also, I didn’t think you wanted to get involved with the UGB right now.”

“Not right now. But maybe later.”

“Okay, but how does this information help us with later? It’ll probably all be useless by the time we want to use it.”

Vlad shrugged, still not looking at Shaggy. “It all helps. Troop movements, shipment methodologies, even a vague idea of how many grunts they have. It’s all helpful.”

Shaggy growled low in his throat. Those were all good points. But he really didn’t want to look through the small base for weapons while Vlad sat on his ass. It sounded like grunt work while Vlad was doing the important stuff. Then he looked down and realized his vampire friend was transcribing what he was seeing on the screen. The man was writing everything on a slim bit of paper with a flimsy-looking pen. Shaggy grimaced and decided on the lesser of two evils.

“Alright then. I’ll get on then. Call me if you see something interesting.”

“I’ll try to remember. Also, make sure that the Legion gets a cut of whatever credits you find.”

Shaggy waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah. I know. But it doesn't look like these idiots carry much in the way of credits.”

Vlad sat up a little. “That’s odd.”

Shaggy shrugged. “I’m off to collect stuff.”

With a grunt and a wave, Vlad said goodbye as Shaggy rushed from the room. His first stop was the locker-room. If any place was bound to have backpacks and duffel bags, it was there. That hunch was proven correct as he rushed down the aisles, breaking the locker’s flimsy locks. Most every UGB trooper had a backpack of some kind. But no weapons or armor. In fact, Shaggy was all the way down on the other end of the locker room before he found something interesting.

Nestled in the far corner of the locker room. Right next to a small shower room was a steel cage. There was a door into the small room and Shaggy grinned as he noticed shelves upon shelves of weaponry inside the cage. It was a military-style gun room. Where the UGB handed out weapons to its troops. Shaggy could barely contain himself as he rushed into the room. Breaking the metal door in the process. But Shaggy didn’t register the noise as he dove into the racks of weapons and armor with glee.

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Shiny, metal-looking armors and energy weapons dotted the shelves. Along with secondary equipment. Energy cells, utility belts, handcuffs, and radio equipment. Shaggy couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he grabbed a duffel off the shelf and started filling up. He was as careful as possible with the energy cells as the damn things hummed ominously when he grabbed them. But for the rest he tossed everything into a bag and tossed it out in to the locker room.

Time flew by as Shaggy did his best to empty the shelves. Once or twice he came upon a specialty item which he didn’t recognize. Like at the end of one rack, he found a small square, safe. Shaggy broke the lock easy enough, though the damn thing shocked him pretty bad. As his hand healed from the burns, he opened the safe to find a small container holding seven vials on a bed of velvet. Shaggy sucked in a breath as his gamer senses were tingling. He carefully set the small black container aside and went back to loading up on weapons and armor. He kept having to go back for more duffel bags, but eventually he had a sizable horde of loot. Apparently, the little bunker they were in was designed to outfit more than the sixteen or so people that were stationed here. Or maybe they were just really cautious with back-up weaponry.

Shaggy tossed his eighth bag out into the locker room when he heard footsteps heading his way. He took a breath of the air and immediately calmed himself. Looked like Vlad was finished before he was. The vampire was moving toward the door to the gun room when Shaggy came back with a ninth bag.

“Jeez. These guys were really planning for a damn war, weren’t they?” Vlad asked, eyes wide at all the bags.

Shaggy wiped the sweat from his face and smiled. “Tell me about it. These fuckers have a hell of an arms connection. Most of this stuff looks brand new. I got to talk to my own arms guy, see if getting this stuff is super easy or something.”

“Probably not. Remember, there’s a rumor that the UGB are working with the above-ground police. Also, hold up, YOU have an arms guy?”

Shaggy nodded. “Kek'zar. Guy I met up top. He’s an alright guy. I need to go back and see if he settled into our turf alright.”

Vlad shook his head as he jammed a stack of papers into the outer pocket of a duffel bag. “Well, first we have to get all of this out of here.”

“You carry four, and I grab five. It’s not that hard, dude.”

Vlad gave him an incredulous look. “While I’m happy you think I’m that strong, I can’t carry four bags.”

“What? I’ve seen you throw people around like rag dolls and punch your arm through people.”

“I’m fast, Shaggy. My body is tough enough, so I throw myself around and sometimes, through people. I don’t have the brute strength you and Ren have. Or even Dave, for that matter.”

Shaggy bit his lip as he looked down at his pile of duffel bags. There was no way in hell he was going to leave this stuff behind. Not only did their people need it, but it would be a huge finger in the eye of the UGB. He gave a grunt as he left four of the bags, two to an arm, and turned to Vlad.

“Can you at least take a few up the stairs? I can probably shift when we’re back in Under-Town and you can strap some bags to me.”

“Can I ride your wolf form?” Vlad asked.

“Dude, you probably run faster than I do.”

“You’re a giant black demon wolf with horns. We could probably get people to pay for rides. All it would take is a notice at How We Roll and the players would come in droves.”

“You do that and I’ll defang your ass.”

Vlad merely rolled his eyes as he grabbed two bags and followed Shaggy. It was only two trips, but once they were back on the streets of Under-Town, Shaggy quickly shifted and tried to orient himself. He did not know where they were, but the Arena’s familiar silhouette could be seen off in the distance. So at least they weren’t taken outside of Under-Town.

With some helpful nosing and pawing, Shaggy showed Vlad which bag held long ratchet straps and the vampire set to work. Vlad attached all the bags through the straps and latched them onto Shaggy’s lupine form. They itched like crazy and Shaggy wanted nothing more than to scratch all the straps to ribbons. But he refrained, waiting for his vampire friend to vanish flitting about. Once eight bags were strapped to Shaggy’s sides and back, Vlad put a duffel over his shoulder and leapt onto Shaggy’s back.

Shaggy growled menacingly as the vampire got situated. Vlad paid him no mind and instead dug his heels into Shaggy’s sides.

“Onward, demon stead!”

Shaggy could feel his large wolf eyes roll in their sockets. He gave a huff and jogged, testing his unfamiliar weight. Thankfully, the bags weren’t too heavy for his wolf form and Vlad himself was entirely negligible weight-wise. However, the stares they accumulated as Shaggy rushed through the streets were annoying. Shouts of alarm and surprise went up from the citizenry, and Vlad used the opportunity to show-off.

“Fear not, people of Under-Town. My fine stead is of no harm to anyone!” He called as Shaggy picked up the pace.

He was considering biting his friend’s leg off just for the fun of it. But Vlad would probably grow the damn thing back somehow. Shaggy growled as he ran, humans and aliens clearing a path for him. He had to use the arena as a landmark, but Shaggy navigated his way to main street and then oriented himself back toward their bar. As he did, he heard and smelled the sounds of people behind them. Shaggy stretched his neck and looked back. Vlad was still seated on his back, but the vampire was turned around, calling joyously to a crowd of people following them.

Shaggy gave a short yip, and Vlad spun back to face him. He gave Vlad his best ‘what the hell’ look, but the vampire’s annoying smile never moved.

“They’re our adoring fans!” Vlad called happily.

Shaggy growled in his throat and did everything he could to speed up. He even ducked into the cramped streets of several shanty neighborhoods. Yet still, the crowd followed. Of course, Vlad calling out happily to them didn’t help things. Shaggy took a sharp right and then a sharp left before jumping over several buildings. When he landed, he saw the empty square around the Viper’s Den just ahead. He put on a last burst of speed and charged down the road.

Several of their Lackey lookouts spotted him incoming and gave call-outs. But Shaggy ignored them as he cleared the street into the square. As he did, he spotted the bar and leapt, aiming for a spot just to the left of the entrance. Mid-leap, Shaggy canceled his shift, hoping that Vlad would go tumbling toward the ground with the bags. But the blood-sucking bastard clutched onto his back like a damn koala. Instead, the bag’s drug them both to the dirt as Shaggy’s jump was thrown off, and they hit the ground a few yards from Shaggy target.

Vlad leapt from Shaggy’s back as Shaggy threw off the straps and bags around him. They had drawn the eyes of several bar patrons as well as some of their Lackeys. Shaggy spotted Dave standing next to the bar with his usual band of NPC friends. The smiling play gave him a wave as Shaggy turned to Vlad.

Vlad was glaring at him. “What the hell?!”

Shaggy quirked an eyebrow. “What the hell to you? Why were you egging on a bunch of jackasses to follow us? We’re carrying a shitload of weapons and armor and you want people to see where we put it?”

“They don’t know what we are carrying, Shaggy. So what’s the harm? Besides, this is a great advertisement for the bar. So it’s win-win.”

Shaggy grimaced as the crowd of people that were following them rushed into the square. He could see several of their eyes searching for a large black wolf. He stuck a finger in Vlad’s face.

“If one of those wang-rods asks for a wolf-ride I am going to start cutting people Vlad. Bar be damned. I am not a theme park ride. I mean it.”

Vlad waved a hand. “Yeah yeah. Why don’t you get the bags inside while I deal with the crowd?”

Shaggy huffed, but nodded. He waved Dave over as he knelt down to grab as many bags as he could. Dave’s footsteps came skipping his way and when Shaggy stood back up, the man was happily shuffling around.

“Dude! That was so cool! Mid-air shift into an impromptu piggy-back ride. So choice, my dude. What’s all this stuff?”

Shaggy grunted as he stood with several bags strapped to his body. “I’ll explain inside. But grab what you can. We need to get this downstairs and squared away. Slink still down there?”

“Yeah, little dude is working his snake-tail off. We need to get him out of that dark cave and into... this dark cave? You know what I mean. Little dude is spending all his time doing logistics. We need to get him out of there.”

Shaggy nodded as Dave grabbed the remained bags and they made their way to the bar’s side entrance. The door led straight to the basement, which was exactly what they need. Behind them, Vlad was already in salesman's mode, talking up the incoming crowd. Shaggy closed his ears off and rushed as quick as he could. Getting the loot sorted and handed out was going to be big for their Legion. Also, he wanted to figure out what those several vials were. He didn’t know who could tell him, but he was sure the others would have ideas. Those vials set his teeth on edge, and he was sure they were the key to something big. His gaming senses told him so.