“How the hell hasn’t this happened yet?” Shaggy asked as the others made noises of surprise.
They were probably getting the same notification he just got. He closed out the message window and let the others catch up. The surrounding NPCs went about their business while the few standing close enough to hear him just gazed at him quizzically. Their AI not allowing them to make sense of his conversation. Vlad was the first after Shaggy to finish the message, however, he didn’t look ecstatic about it.
“What about our Hideout?”
“Well, we can have multiple Hideouts. As criminals, that would make sense, but this would turn the bar into our main Lair. I don’t know if we can have multiples of those.” Ren answered, wiping an invisible window out of the air.
Vlad snorted and crossed his arms. “But do we even want to do this right now?”
Shaggy punched the grumpy vampire in the arm. “What the hell is wrong with you? Of course we do. We could get this bar built quicker. We wouldn’t have to worry about those creepy ass worms, and we wouldn’t be in a damn underground tomb.”
Shaggy stopped as the reason Vlad was being moody became apparent. “Oh, you can’t be serious. You don’t want to lose your dungeon?!”
Vlad humphed, but said nothing as Slink and Dave finished reading. Slink had a bemused look at their conversation, but Dave seemed outright excited. Although that was pretty much his constant state. Ren put a massive grey hand on Vlad’s shoulder and twisted the man till he was facing the big rhino-man.
“Dude, this is a good thing. We can still work on the Hideout. But honestly, we haven’t been back there in a while. The bar is a better place for us. We can still dig downward. Maybe we can even connect the two somehow.”
“We’d need more builders or maybe the Lair will have something.” Slink added helpfully.
Shaggy was about his own two cents when Dave nearly vibrated out of his skin. The young man was jumping around happily. Big grin plastered on his face. They all stared at the dark-haired man until he answered their questioning looks, still dancing around happily.
“Dudes, my friends haven’t even formed a Super-Group yet. I’m already going to be part of a Legion? This is fucking outstanding.”
Shaggy shook his head and chuckled. “See, Vlad. You gotta do it. We can’t disappoint Dave. That’d be like disappointing a puppy… that can do karate.”
Vlad failed to stifle a laugh as they watched Dave’s odd dance. “Fine. But does this place even have a terminal? Also, your original question still stands. Why the hell is this happening now?”
“Well, we haven’t all been in the bar at the same time before. Have we?”
“I don’t know, but even if we had, most of the time the Lackeys are outside so that Frank and his guys can do their work. We took shelter in here when the Omegas started dropping and now here we all are.” Slink posited.
Shaggy thought about it for a bit. He wasn’t sure if they had all been in the bar at the same time. But they rarely had so many Lackeys in the bar at once. So maybe that was it? Ren and Vlad both looked thoughtful when he checked their faces. But Dave was noticeably absent. Shaggy glanced around for the extra-hyper guy and found him running around the bar and toward the kitchen. Shaggy watched him dash in and then back out, before he turned toward Mr. Blue and Petra’s office near the kitchen door. The excitable Dave burst into and out of the door, a smile still on his face.
“Hey, guys! Is this the thingy?” Dave asked, pointing a finger back into Petra and Blue’s office.
Shaggy shook his head at the excitable Dave as he and the others moved to look. Several of the NPCs moved as well. Their faces were still quizzical. Shaggy looked around the bar until he spotted Petra near a front wall, still holding the K-tech laser rifle. She had been taking pot-shots at fliers the whole time, apparently.
“Petra, we need our bank. We’re... uh, gonna secure our money.” Shaggy yelled.
Petra glanced behind her, before she looked at the K-tech rifle sadly. She handed it off to Monrew and uttered some kind of warning that Shaggy couldn’t hear. But Monrew nodded his head in agreement, looking terrified. He lost sight of Petra as they entered the small metal room. Its south-facing wall was gone entirely thanks to their rebuilding efforts. Which was probably a good thing, as all of them couldn’t exactly fit in the room together. Especially with trying to squeeze Ren’s bulky frame in.
But sure enough. There was a standing silver terminal sticking out of the ground right next to Mr. Blue’s old and cracked desk. It looked exactly like the one in their underground hideout. Slim, silver circular rod sticking out of the ground topped with a long keyboard-like computer terminal. Shaggy moved up to it as Dave hopped around excitedly. The holo-display popped up as he got within range and he could see most of the same options they had gotten from the one below ground.
“Wait. Was this place a hideout too?”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The others glanced at each other until Ren shook his head. “I don’t think so. Maybe it turned up cause we can make a Legion now. What’s it say?”
“Same as the other one. Building stuff, facilities, rooms, etc. All kinds of boring stuff.” Shaggy said as he glanced over the various tabs.
Finally, he found a tab that was previously grayed-out and without a title. Now the tab read: Legion. Shaggy grinned as he hit the tab and was immediately taken to an image of the bar they were all standing in. The terminal also registered all five players currently standing within the office. Clicking the option to share the screen, Shaggy backed up as the holo-display filled the room. They were presented with a count of the Lackeys currently in the bar and the current structural integrity of the bar. Which was…
“Thirty-two percent?! Man, that sucks,” Shaggy whistled as he looked over the holographic recreation of the half-built bar.
“Enough to count as a ‘structure.’ Apparently.” Ren said, rubbing his chin and staring at the numbers. “This says we have thirty Lackeys? That can’t be right.”
“Thirty in the bar,” Slink corrected. “Plus the few outside. Doesn’t look like it’s counting the Needle Sisters, though.”
Ren shook his head. “Wow, I didn’t know we were that big.”
Vlad nodded as he reached up to touch something on the holographic display. “Still nowhere near as big as the Big Four down here, though. Not to mention topside. That’s where the real big boys play.”
“All the more reason to do this.” Shaggy said as he gratefully took the bag of Credit Chips from an impatient-looking Petra. The scaled-woman practically threw them at Shaggy before she raced back to her favorite rifle.
“So what do we gotta--- Oh there it is.” Shaggy said as a window popped into his view again. Man, he hated that.
Notification
Vlad Kopish has requested to form a Legion with you. The structure and design of the Legion can all be edited through the Legion Menu in your closest Hideout’s Terminal. Founding Legion Members will also need to select a Hideout to use as their Lair. A Lair is an enhanced Hideout with many more options, including ones for defense, offense, training, and entertainment areas. All Lackey’s under every member of the Legion will be added to a communal pool.
Accept Invite?
[Yes/No?]
Shaggy quickly pressed yes and waited, but nothing happened. When he glanced up, he saw the others all looking around. Disappointed looks were also on their faces. Shaggy had been expecting the Legion Tab to do something. Vlad held up a hand, though. His eyes still had that faraway look of someone messing with an in-game window.
“Hold up.” Vlad said. “I still have to choose a few things since I was the one who activated it. Do we want a single leader? Or do we want to keep the Co-leader arrangement we kind of have already?”
“Are those our only options?” Shaggy asked as he pulled a credit chip from his bag and moved to the terminal. They were going to have to upload everything they had to get this place built. Even if it was just the generic system bought stuff, at least they would have better defenses.
“Well, we could do a council of founding members. We could all do our own thing, but every gang decision would have to be agreed to by the leaders. We would also have to structure our Lackeys into groups under each Leader. But if we don’t want them, we throw them back into the pool.”
“So we would all have our own little sects.” Ren nodded. “I like that. We each run our own little groups, but then come together for big jobs.”
“Then we go out and do some villainy.” Dave cheered. “I am so amped for all of this. I am going to raise my Lackeys right. Where going to go on runs, train every day, help the citizenry. Uh… I mean hassle the citizenry.”
“Actually, that’s a good idea, Dave.” Shaggy chuckled, still plugging chips into the Terminal. “I hereby dub you head of PR. It’s your job to make our organization look good. Help old ladies cross the street, rescue dogs from trees, get rid of the local riff-raff.”
Vlad and the others chuckled as Dave’s grin got even bigger.
“We’ll do the dark stuff. You just keep being you.” Vlad said. “But I like the idea of each of us creating specialized Lackeys.”
“That’s kind of what we wanted to do anyway, right? I mean, Ephemara and I were going to be head of the spies.” Slink nodded.
“Okay. Let’s go with a council and get this over with. We don’t know how long it’s going to take for those Blade-Bots to get here.”
Vlad nodded. “Done.”
As he did, the holo-display they were looking at shimmered a bit before it grew bright and filled out. Soon several options appeared at different sections of the bar. Options for wooden floors and tables, as well as options for new rooms and tools for those rooms. Shaggy blinked as he tried to take it all in. In the upper corner of the display were several icons, followed by some numbers.
“Is that our resources?” Shaggy asked, waving at the images.
There were light blue silhouettes of people, stacks of wood, metal, and even credits displayed, and Shaggy was sure he was right. Ren and the others nodded as Vlad seemed to still be scrolling through menus. The number of metal went up, suddenly surprising everyone. Slink moved to the office door to see what was going on and he laughed excitedly.
“It’s one of those Omegas. That old guy NPC moved it in here and he’s studying it. I guess it counts as a resource, right? What do we do with it?”
“We spend them on building stuff.” Vlad said, waving a hand. “Also, it looks like we get a discount for having a professional builder. We can have this place up and running in no time.”
Shaggy grinned as he plugged the last Credit Chip into the terminal and transferred the money to the Lair. They could go over the rest of the options later. For now, they had to focus on getting the bar set-up and ready for the oncoming bots. He turned to Slink and Dave.
“You two get the Lackeys to drag in every bit of metal they can. Vlad, you get this place built out and please don’t make it some dark palace fit for a prince.” Shaggy thought he heard Vlad tsked as he turned to Ren and continued. “You get everyone ready for the next round. We need our people ready, so reload, restock and tell everyone to prepare.”
“What about you?” Vlad asked, as the others moved out. Dave still hopping with excitement.
“I’ll help where I can. But I gotta find some food. Tillani took a lot out of me, not to mention his boys and the bots. I need to be ready for round two. I might even talk to my Werewolf sensei and see if he can impart any wisdom.”
“Easy to find wisdom when you don’t have any to start with.” Vlad joked.
“Shut it and get to building us a decent bar. We have a little wood that Blobby managed to get a hold of, but mostly you’re going to be working with metal.”
Vlad cracked his fingers as he shrank the terminal’s holo-display. “Oh, don’t you worry, Wolfy. This place is going to look amazing when I’m done with it.”