As Shaggy lay in the dirt trying to get focused, a boot came down and slammed into his nose. Pain screamed through his face and he heard his nose crunch. Not for the first time, he questioned the game’s pain settings. Letting his werewolf regeneration take care of his nose, he grabbed the offending foot with his transformed hands and jerked hard. He had to be careful as five four-inch claws extended from his hairy, elongated hands.

Shaggy heard the person scream as their ankle broke and jumped to his feet, facing the gang of Red Coil thugs. He felt his nose snap into place as he glared at their shocked faces. Nearby, he could hear Ren and Vlad fighting, supposedly with other gang members. Slink had gone quiet, which he figured meant the damn kid was hiding.

Shaggy flexed his newly formed clawed hands and plastered a grin on his face that he hoped looked maniacal. He may have not been a role-player, but he was playing a Villain after all. He saw the six thugs pull back in fear. Shaggy could feel sharpened canines with his tongue and guessed that his hand wasn’t the only thing to change.

“You kids done fucked up now.” He said, still grinning.

He dashed forward, relying on his enhanced speed to take him past the first few gang members. As he dashed past, he raked his claws through several of them. His claws came away bloody as those he hit took a second to realize they were bleeding. Shaggy continued forward until he was in the middle of their small group. A random thug with bright green spiky hair looked terrified as Shaggy came to a stop in front of him.

Shaggy grabbed the poor kid by his jacket and hurled him bodily at several of his buddies. He was grateful for the general stat boost most Mutants got. It strengthened them and made them tougher than the average NPC. Add on to that his enhancements from his Mutation and these kids didn’t stand a chance. He took a glance around and realized several of the Red Coil members looked scared, but a few of them had adopted Terry’s backward facing stance. Revealing that their jackets also had the red spiral pattern on it was well.

Shaggy widened his eyes in realization as similar red tentacles flew out of their jackets and started toward him. He dodged the first one as it passed by him, swiping his claws at it as he went. But his sharpened black claws, already stained red with blood, came away even redder. He examined the liquid as he dodged the other tentacles. They seemed to move more sluggishly than the first one had.

“Is this... paint?” Shaggy asked aloud as he sniffed at the liquid. His werewolf senses making his nose sting as the scent hit his nostrils.

“Yes!” Shouted Vlad from nearby. “They have a Mutant or Alien somewhere.”

Shaggy turned to look for his friend when he felt something solid slam into his back. He stumbled forward a bit before turning to see a trembling gang member with a bat. Shaggy dodged another swipe from a tentacle before backhanding the thug across the face. He felt and heard the guy’s nose crunch as the thug was thrown off his feet by the blow. He glared back at the other gang members, daring them to try something, before he went back to looking around.

Vlad was nearby, flitting between gang members. He would punch or swipe at one with his fingernails before speeding away. There were a few tentacles around him as well, but he was fast enough to stay out of their way. Ren, meanwhile, had waded into a group of gangsters and was swatting them left and right, sending them flying. He saw a couple of them hit the large alien with bats and metal pipes. Even a few tentacles were slamming into his tough gray skin. But Ren looked unperturbed. He was definitely the Tank of their group.

As Shaggy watched everything, he continued to dodge the odd swipe from the tentacles assaulting him. He noticed that not every gang member had a tentacle sticking out of his back and every time Ren punched a tentacle, destroying it, the rest would get faster. He scanned the fight, looking for the odd man out, finding one. Slink was hiding behind a grimy metal trashcan.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Shaggy groaned. “Damn it Slink! Why don’t you make yourself useful?!”

Slink’s eyes widened as he noticed Shaggy’s gaze. The young boy looked terrified not of Shaggy, but of the fight in general. He shook his head and flailed a hand at Shaggy. He obviously didn’t want attention brought to his hiding place. Shaggy was about to scream at him again when a thought occurred to him.

“Fine. Stay there. But find us this damn tentacle creator!”

Slink still looked scared, but after looking around at the fighting, he nodded his head and ducked further behind his trash can. Shaggy nodded as he looked around the fight again. He noticed that those goons that had tentacles coming out of their backs had to remain stationary. But those that had fallen unconscious or dead could still have the tentacles pop out of their back.

Shaggy turned to help Ren as he saw a tentacle pop out of the back of a fallen thug and slither toward Ren’s foot. The group behind him were still either terrified or clutching at the large gashes in their chests and stomachs that his claws had created. But before he could take a step, another tentacle swiped at his arm. He narrowly dodged the attack and charged, but not at the tentacle, at the guy who was wearing the jacket the tentacle came out of.

Once he reached the thug, the tentacle continued to jerk wildly. Side-stepping quickly, he slashed his own claws down the guy’s back, tearing the jacket, the guy’s shirt, and some flesh. Once the jacket had been torn to shreds, the tentacle dissipated until it vanished entirely. Unfortunately, that meant the other two tentacles around him got that much quicker. He couldn’t look around anymore as he now had to concentrate on the pair of them.

“Destroy the jackets!” He shouted as he jumped a tentacle and swiped at another with his overgrown claws.

He could hear the tearing and ripping of leather as the others followed his instructions. But the tentacles were becoming faster and faster and seemed to defend their hosts. Shaggy couldn’t get close enough anymore. He wasn’t as fast as Vlad or as strong as Ren. He was more of an all-rounder. Except for his healing, which he had dumped a lot of early points into cause he hadn’t got his transformation to work in the early game. It still didn’t, really.

Shaggy watched his stamina bar drop and drop as the pair of tentacles attacking him grew faster. Pretty soon, he could no longer dodge and instead was being beaten back and forth between the two tentacles. With his enhanced healing, though, a portion of the damage being dealt to him was being healed before he got hit again. But they were still getting faster.

“Blergh! I could use some help here!” He shouted as the pair of tentacles batted him up in the air like a hacky sack.

All of a sudden, the tentacles disappeared and Shaggy dropped hard to the dirt floor. His HP bar was low, but was slowly climbing back up. His stamina was moving at a much slower rate but was also coming around as he lifted himself up from the dirt again. He heard the thudding of feet and scattered yelling as the Red Coil gang seemed to retreat.

“Thank you to whoever the hell that was.” Shaggy said, still a little punch-drunk.

“You’re welcome.” Came Slink’s voice.

Vlad spoke up as Shaggy got a look around. “What the hell did you do, kid? We were the ones fighting!”

Slink looked disgustingly proud of himself as he pointed across the street at the vendor stalls that now stood abandoned. Shaggy saw Ren stoop down and rummage through of few of their victim’s pockets as Slink marched over to where he was pointing. He noticed idly that the kid had found pants from somewhere. Vlad shot a look at Shaggy, who could only shrug his shoulders.

Vlad threw his hands up and began helping Ren loot. Shaggy looked at Slink again, before deciding to help them. Soon he heard Slink’s whiny voice again.

“Hey! Come on! I wanna show you.”

“Loot first, kid. We need the credits.”

Shaggy went through some alien woman’s pant pockets as he heard Slink huff in annoyance. Nearby, Ren kicked a few of the bodies over and continued his work as Vlad dipped a finger in a small pool of blood and licked it.

“Anything good?” Shaggy asked as he watched the vampire grimace.

“Just a few credit chips here and there. Nothing to write home about and we can’t know how much is on them without a reader.” Ren said kicked another body over.

The body groaned in pain, and Ren quickly slammed a fist into the gangster’s face. Taking a second look, Shaggy saw that the huge Rhino-man was covered in bruises. Large black welts were forming on the surface of his skin.

“Hey, are you alright?”

Ren looked up from his work and wobbled his head in a ‘kind of,’ gesture. “I’ll be fine. But we could use a healer or at the very least some health potions or something.”

“What are you at?” Asked Vlad, referring to Ren’s health.

“Just under forty percent.” Ren said, standing back up.

Shaggy nodded as he also stood and looked around. Between the three of them and Slink’s halfhearted attempts, it looked like they had a small pile of credits to work with. Vlad walked over and the three shared the credit sticks. Vlad had also picked up a few vials of multicolored liquid and crystals, which Shaggy guessed were drugs.

“Now what the Hell are we gonna do with these?” Shaggy wondered.