Shaggy shifted his feet slightly and watched as the Bladelings sword whizzed by his chest. With a casual and practiced flick of his wrist, he sliced through the leaping robot’s face. It crashed to the street in a bundle of limbs as Shaggy sighed. These things were getting annoyingly easy to dispatch. You just had to wait for them to leap, and then counterattack. Even his Lackeys were making quick work of the things as they traveled toward Rakgu territory.

Rita had one in a headlock nearby and was decapitating it with her sword. Cekrass had taken to simply ripping the slim arms off the poor robots after they completed their thrust attack. Chromia could tank the hit and then simply shove her metal arms through the things, while Blobby would engulf them and wait for them to dissolve. Shaggy tried to think of a time he had seen the big blue alien take any damage, but he really couldn’t recall anything.

Ephemara phased into existence next to him and Shaggy had to stop himself from jamming his claws into the pale woman. By the way she grinned, Ephemara knew she had startled him.

“Ways clear ahead, boss. A lot of these things are just wandering around in packs now. Things seem to be calming down.”

Shaggy nodded as the others finished the pack of Bladelings. This was their fourth pack since leaving the bar. While the groups of Bladelings had been more frequent when they were close to the bar, once they got far enough away, the roaming packs became fewer and fewer. Shaggy had initially thought it was odd, but he figured the Raks were intentionally forcing the bots out of their territory somehow. He wasn't sure how they were doing it, but it explained the lack of bots on Rakgu turf.

Once Rita had finished slicing up another Bladeling, Shaggy nodded and waved everyone forward again. He gestured for Ephemara to take the lead again as they moved. The invisible and intangible woman was the perfect scout. She had informed them of several roving packs of Bladelings and lead them around them. When they couldn’t go around, though. They went through. With her in the front and Chromia’s directions, they traveled further into Rakgu turf.

The metal shacks became less and less prevalent as more standard brick buildings became the norm. Shaggy wondered why the north was in much worse shape than the other areas of Under-Town. Rita and the others explained to him that the North side had been under The Faceless and the Quinica’s protection. The Quinica had never really gotten involved with the populace, preferring to sell their wares on the main street and The Faceless were even more secretive. So the north became sort of refuge from the other gangs. A place of relative peace in Under-Town. Of course, since the gangs that ran that side of the town didn’t put any work into it, the people were forced to build their own homes with what they had. So the metal shacks were what most people came up with.

Chromia gave shouted a curt “Left!”

They all turned down an alley as one. Rita and Cekrass kept pace just behind Shaggy and he could feel them through the Pack Bond they now shared. The feelings were less intense with just the three of them. But he could still… feel the others off in the bar's direction. But they were more muted. While in combat, the bond seemed to hum with power and Shaggy could feel both Rita’s and Cekrass’ excitement as they fought. It was an odd feeling and when he asked the others about it, they both claimed that he was the source of their shared excitement. So his emotions were feeding into them, which fed back to him, creating a loop that amped them all for battle. It was interesting.

Shaggy checked their path as he ran. Seeing it was clear, he brought his Lackey menu and limited it to just the surrounding Lackeys. Now, with the Legion in place, his Lackey menu had exploded with over forty people. Now that they were sharing Lackeys, he had a loyalty rating with every member. Which was far too much to look at all at once. He wanted to check on the Loyalty ratings of his current members.

Ephemara Naluc

Stafintom – Level 7

Personality – Chaotic

Loyalty – 93/100

Blubblliynnblobenerbluberski (Blobby)

Mucunoid – Level 4

Personality – Ambivalent

Loyalty – 83/100

Cekrass Sslrisses

Varanoid – Level 4

Personality – Dimwitted

Loyalty – 92/100

Pack Bond Increase 5%

Rita Crawford

Human – Level 4

Personality – Motherly

Loyalty 65/100

Pack Bond Increase 5%

He was surprised that Rita and Cekrass had jumped two levels in such a short time. But with all the fighting they had been doing, it made sense. Also, their Loyalty Ratings had gone way up as well. Rita was still below seventy, which annoyed him, but they could work on it. But Cekrass was almost a Henchman already. Meanwhile, Ephemara had become a beast. He wasn’t sure how strong a level seven Lackey was overall, especially one not designed for combat. But hey, she was getting stronger. That was all that matter. Blobby was a mystery unto itself. The amorphous alien’s Loyalty seemed didn’t seem to move that much. It was higher than it had been, which was good, but it was still not growing as fast as Shaggy would’ve liked. Another thing to work on.

“Back to the right!” Chromia shouted, dragging Shaggy out of his menus.

The metal woman not being on his Loyalty board was worrying. But perhaps the Needle Sisters weren’t a part of his crew. If she was considered a part of them to begin with. Shaggy prepared himself in case this was all some sort of weird betrayal scheme set-up by the one-eyed woman. They made the turn and exited from the alley into a larger dirt street.

Empty vendor stalls lined the road, merchandise gone from the shelves. Food and clothing littered the street as what the vendors couldn’t carry away was strewn about. Chromia came to a stop and seemed to look around. Shaggy grew his claws just in case and watched the surroundings cautiously. He heard Rita draw her sword as his unease seeped into their pack bond.

“Why aren’t the stalls destroyed?” Chromia asked.

Shaggy snapped out of his caution as he glanced around. The metal woman was right. The stalls, while empty, were still intact. In fact, none of the nearby buildings looked so much as touched.

“Maybe the bots haven’t made it this far in.” Rita guessed.

“Not even the big ones that were falling from the sky?” Chromia asked dubiously.

“Yeah, this doesn’t make sense, unless the Raks were killing the things as soon as they landed. Which isn’t unfeasible given the number of people in their gang.” Shaggy added.

Chromia nodded, but she still had a pensive look on her face. “I don’t like it. Even if they capped all the falling bots, the wave of Bladelings should have marched through here. They would need all the members of every Captain’s crew watching the border of their territory to push all the robots away. Even if they are the biggest in terms of numbers, not all of their guys are that good.”

Cekrass snorted. “Bots are weak.”

“Yeah, maybe…”

Chromia bit her lip and looked to be deep in thought. Shaggy agreed with her, but they needed to keep moving.

“Which way are we heading?”

Chromia snapped out of her thinking and glanced around again. “Uh, just about a block to the east. We looking for a squat adobe building painted blue.”

“Kind of far from the center of Rak territory, isn’t it? I would think they would want their ammo supplier closer.” Rita said.

“Yeah, it pissed off a lot of crews that they had to wait for some deliveries. But the Owner of the shop didn’t want to be affiliated with the Raks to begin with. He just set-up shop on their turf and then found himself in charge of their ammo production. No one was happy with the overall arrangement. At least that’s how I heard it.” Chromia explained as they jogged eastward.

They made it a to the end of the block and Shaggy had them all stop. He searched around for Ephemara, wanting the woman to check out the store. The blue adobe building stuck out from the others nearby. Not just in its coloring, but in the accouterments that the building had as well. Ephemara appeared on a nearby roof and gave Shaggy a questioning look. Shaggy pointed at the blue building and waved Ephemara forward. She gave him a thumbs up and disappeared again.

Shaggy stared at the odd building as Ephemara did her thing. It was squat with a slap-dash blue paint job that only covered the walls. The roof was left beige, giving the square building a really odd look. Three of the building’s sides were left bare, save for the crappy blue paint. Then the front is where all the work seemed to go. It was covered in metal sheeting plastered to the adobe walls and a metal gate was drawn down covering the wooden front door. A large red ‘closed’ sign hung on the door.

It was even set away from the other houses and store fronts nearby. This neighborhood seemed to consist of a few stores and a couple of houses. But nothing was open, and the people seemed to be gone. Or they were stuck in the adobe brick houses, afraid of the oncoming robots. He was about to order Rita and Cekrass to search the nearby houses when a bright flash of green light came from the supposed ammo shop.

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Ephemara phased into view as she bounced off a blue wall. She wavered on her feet as she put a hand to her head. It looked to Shaggy like she had run full speed into the wall. The green magic that had stopped her coalesced on the wall until it was a bright ball that shot up into the air. The lights in a nearby house came on and Shaggy could hear shouting coming from inside. Chromia grimaced and looked around.

“That’s the owner. He probably had the shop warded. We need to grab him and get him to take it down.”

“That green orb probably told every Rak in the area what we’re trying. We need to go!” Rita said.

Shaggy groaned as the shouting man stepped out of his house. He had to keep from laughing as an old man in pajamas wielding a weird-looking shotgun marched his way toward Ephemara. The old man was even wearing a long pointed night cap with a fuzzy ball on the end of it and fluffy slippers. He was grumbling something under his breath as he approached the confused woman. Shaggy waved Cekrass and Rita forward to contain the old man as he turned to Chromia.

“How much time do we have?”

Chromia just shrugged as Rita and Cekrass ran off toward the old man. Shaggy grunted and watched as Rita drew her sword and Cekrass leaped at the old man’s back. There was a loud bang as the Cekrass slammed into the old man’s back and his shotgun went off. Shaggy winced as the blast barely missed Ephemara’s stunned form and slammed into the blue wall of the old man’s shop. Thankfully, it didn’t trigger another green flare.

Shaggy and Chromia walked over to the old man as Cekrass wrestled the shotgun out of his hands and Rita placed the tip of her sword to his throat. But the old man was stymied as he tried to squirm his way out of the large lizard’s arms. Shouting all the while.

“Y'all bastards don’t know who you’re fucking with! My boys will come and end all of you! Lemme go dammit and git that pig-sticker out of my face! Y’all can’t ‘timidate me! You know who I work for?! They’ll gut all of you!”

“Shut the hell up, Sylus!” Chromia shouted in the old man’s face when she and Shaggy got closer.

Shaggy nodded gratefully at Rita and had the older woman check on Ephemara. Cekrass kept the older man in a bear hug as Chromia addressed him.

The older man tried to look around, but Cekrass’ tight hold kept him from moving too much. “Is that you Chromia? I heard that dumb bastard killed you.”

“Yeah, well. The rumors of my demise… etcetera. We need to get into your shop, Sylus. So please don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

Sylus cackled dryly. “Oh, you can’t be serious, sweetheart? You know what those Rak fucks will do to me if I let you at what I got in there.”

Chromia stepped forward and wrenched the old man’s head around. His pointed night cap fell off, revealing a bald head with a few white strands of hair. Sylus stared at Chromia’s metal face. “You know what I’ll do to you if you don’t let us in.”

Sylus’ eyes went wide before he cackled again. This time, Shaggy was sure he saw a few missing teeth in the old man’s mouth. “Ha! Ain’t nothing you lot can do to me that would be worse than those fucking Raks. An’ we both know you ain’t got the time to be torturing poor ole Sylus. So why don’t you take your bitches and your lizard and git?”

Shaggy grunted as he looked around. The old man was right. They had minutes before the first Raks showed up. Even with their leadership gone, the rank-and-file boys probably knew enough to defend the home front. Chromia looked like she was going to argue further with Sylus, but Shaggy nodded at Cekrass and moved forward. The lizard seemed to understand what he wanted as he let go of Sylus. Sylus spun around and grinned happily until Shaggy gripped the back of Sylus’ pajamas and lifted him bodily.

“Hey! Lemme go dammit! Don’t you understand? I ain’t helping you? Ain’t nothing you could do to make me.”

Shaggy ignored him as he carried the shouting man toward the store. “Grab his gun, would you, Cekrass?”

The old man kicked his legs ineffectually as Shaggy walked by Rita and Ephemara. The pale woman seemed to come out of whatever stupor the green magic had done to her. Rita gave Shaggy a nod as he passed and Chromia followed along worriedly.

“Don’t touch mah gun, you overgrown reptile. I paid good money for that, and I ain’t letting no worthless alien touch my stuff.”

Shaggy ignored the squirming man and walked right up to the front door of the shop. He reckoned that whatever magical enchantments were in the store wouldn’t activate so long as he held Sylus. The squirming older man seemed to pick up on Shaggy’s intentions as he wriggled harder. Shaggy heard the man’s pajamas rip and sighed. He let go of the man’s clothes and gripped Sylus by the hair instead. Sylus started howling in pain, but Shaggy ignored it and rammed the both of them into the front door.

Nothing magical happened and Shaggy didn’t feel like he had hit any forcefield. But the locked front door still stopped them both. Sylus gave another shout of pain as his nose hit the wooden door of the shop. Shaggy waited a few seconds to see if anything else activated. When nothing did, he reared the old man back by the head and rammed them both forward as hard as he could. He heard Chromia give a shout, but he was already through the front door. Sylus went quiet and limp in his hand as they stormed through the shop’s front door.

Shaggy crossed the threshold of the store with the limp Sylus and he felt something in the air pop. He was trying to look around the darkened store when a loud whirring spun up just ahead of him. Shaggy’s Enhanced Focus kicked in just as Chromia’s voice shouted from outside the store.

“The turrets, you idiot!”

Shaggy could make out two twin-barreled turrets sitting just above the front counter whirring to life. He watched as electricity traveled across the body of the turret and toward the barrel. Shaggy dropped Sylus to the floor and threw himself forward, hoping that the turrets couldn’t face downward. They whirled to life, and he felt his legs get pelted with something hot, and then he lost the feeling in them entirely.

A cacophony exploded in his ears as he hit the wooden front counter of the store. The whirring turrets continued to fire out the front door for a few seconds before they tried to reorient to find him. Shaggy belatedly noticed that the guns weren’t aiming at Sylus and he groaned internally. Of course the things would shoot the owner. He drug himself behind the front desk as the turrets tried to aim downward at him. His legs had gone to jelly, and he guessed the turrets were set to or intended to be non-lethal.

He heard Sylus cackling madly as the whirring of the guns intensified. The firing had stopped, and they were now just whirling around, trying to find him. He collected himself under the register as Rita shouted from the front door.

“Boss? You alright?”

“Yeah! Damn, things aren’t lethal, just set to stun or something. My legs are out of commission, though.”

Shaggy heard Sylus grumble something about ‘cheap gangsters’ as Chromia’s voice spoke up.

“How powerful are they?”

Shaggy grunted in annoyance. “I don’t know?! They didn’t penetrate skin, but I sure as hell felt them.”

“Do you think I could walk in there?”

“I don’t know.” Shaggy said truthfully. “For all I know, the stuff is magically like the rest of the protections. Why don’t you lot stay out there and I’ll see if I can find an off switch.”

“Hey! Don’t go touching my stuff back there, damn it!” Sylus shouted.

“Dude, how are you still conscious?!” Shaggy shouted as he looked under the counter.

Sylus cackled again. “Heh! You think that’s the first time my head’s been put through something!? But I know the secret. All ya gotta do is go limp and think of a pretty woman. Soon enough the pain stops and you don’t even notice the aftereffects.”

The old man fell into a fit of laughter as Shaggy shook his head. The old guy was nuts. He eventually found what looked to be an unlabeled switch. He debated whether it could be another alarm, but he figured it couldn’t be any worse than what Ephemara had triggered. So he grit his teeth and flipped the switch. The whirring turrets suddenly died and Sylus gave his own disappointed whine.

“Clear!” Shaggy shouted.

He heard his crew barrel into the shop and Sylus grumble angrily as he was taken hostage again. Shaggy laid his back against the back of the counter and looked around. From where he was seated, he could tell that Sylus’ shop wasn’t just for ammo, it was for all sorts of weapons, too.

“Blobby! Grab what you can. Ephemara, you got the back office. Cekrass, grab the ammo. Rita, watch the door. Let’s grab what we can, then get the fuck out of here.”

“Yes, boss!”

He heard the thudding of footsteps as everyone moved to obey his commands. Ephemara shot him a wink as she jumped over the counter and ran into the back rooms. He tested his legs and found that feeling was slowly coming back into them, so he tried to stand using the counter to help. As he struggled to his feet, he came face to face with an angry-looking Sylus. He and Chromia were standing near the bar watching the others ransack the place. Cekrass had even grabbed a large canvass bag from a shelf and was shoving boxes of ammo in it. Blobby was just jamming all sorts of weapons into its body and letting them swirl around. Rita was by the door with her pistol out.

“Damn bastards have ruined me.” Sylus said.

Chromia sighed but stayed quiet. But Shaggy only smiled and shrugged. “Hey man, that’s Under-Town. You own a weapons shop. It was bound to happen, eventually.”

Sylus grunted angrily at him as Chromia shot him a look. Shaggy ignored her and slapped his palms against his numb legs. The old man watched what he was doing and cackled happily.

“Give it up, son. They’ll be numb for hours. Ain’t no way around it neither.”

Shaggy just smiled as his legs were slowly coming back to full function. He did his best to stand taller and eyed Sylus. The older man’s eyes got wide and then he went back to grumbling angrily at the injustice of everything.

“Cheap, techno-bitch lied to me.” Sylus grumbled.

Chromia shook her head. “Probably not, Sy. This short bastard has accelerated healing. So that probably helps.”

Sylus nodded in understanding, but still didn’t look pleased. Shaggy rotated his ankles, trying to get more feelings in his legs. Behind him, he could hear Ephemara rooting around in the back office. Lord knew what she could find back there, but Shaggy was hoping for anything that could hurt the Raks even more. They still had the Toomes angle to work and, hopefully, whatever Scholer could do for them. But the more they had, the stronger they would be.

“Incoming, boss!” Rita shouted from the front door.

Shaggy expected Sylus to laugh again. But the old man just looked around worriedly. Shaggy put a hand on the old man’s shoulder and said as seriously as he could.

“Hey, want us to rough you up some? Make it look like you made a good stand?”

“Shaggy!” Chromia admonished.

But Sylus seemed to think about it before he shook his head. “Wouldn’t matter. They’d still beat my ass for letting it happen. No sense taking two beatings.”

Shaggy nodded as Chromia glanced sadly at the old coot. He could feel the trouble brewing in the metal woman’s sad eyes and he was about to yell for everyone to wrap it up, when Ephemara came running from the back. The pale woman was leaden with canvass bags and Shaggy raised an eyebrow at the sleek alien-looking pistol she had in her hand.

“You guys have to come see this.” Ephemara panted excitedly.

Shaggy shook his head. “No time, Ephe. We have incoming, we gotta bolt.”

But Ephemara would not be deterred. “This will help us get away, now come on!”

She ran through the door to the back as Shaggy and Chromia shared a look with a confused Sylus. Shaggy called for the others as Chromia questioned the old man.

“You got an escape tunnel or something, Sylus?”

But the old man just shook his head. Shaggy grumbled as he explained everything to the others and pointed through the back door. His crew nodded and Cekrass shared a bag of ammo with Rita and Shaggy and they headed toward the back. Shaggy switched the turrets back on as they closed the door to the back. After a short grey hallway, they crowded into the office.

Ephemara had really turned the place over. The filing cabinet was laid open, the desk was turned over, and all the drawers were open. Random bits of trash were on the floor. Ephemara stood in the center of the room. The indentations on the carpet showed that she was standing where the desk used to be. Once everyone was in, Ephemara jumped back and reached down to the carpet. She pulled a two-by-two foot square of carpet up from the floor, revealing a small metal hatch in the floor.

“I thought you said you didn’t have an escape tunnel, Sylus?” Shaggy chuckled.

“I have never seen this before in my life.”

Shaggy and Chromia glanced at each other before Shaggy waved a hand at Ephemara. The skinny woman nodded in understanding and disappeared just as the turrets at the front of the store whirred to life. Rita watched the hallway as Chromia turned to Sylus.

“What do you mean, you’ve never seen this before? How did it get here?”

Sylus grabbed his head and looked around, confused. “I don’t know! I never had an escape tunnel built into my shop, dammit. This makes no sense!”

“Well, we are all gonna to experience this new tunnel together.” Shaggy said as he crowded the others toward the hatch. “Cekrass barricade the door. Soon as Ephe gives the all clear, we’re going down.”

“All of us?” Chromia asked with a significant look at Sylus.

“Yep. All of us. Last one through can cover the hatch as best as they can. If we get lucky, they’ll think we teleported out or something. Plus, I don’t want to leave him here to tell them what we look like. I was planning on ‘accidentally’ killing him before we left, but this seems better.”

Chromia gave Shaggy an angry look, which he ignored entirely. Cekrass and Blobby were finished barricading the door as Ephemara’s voice echoed from the tunnel.

“Clear!”

Shaggy grinned at everyone and pointed at the tunnel. “Okay, everyone, down the dark and scary hole to the unknown.”