“It’s a protection ward,” levy said as she crouched over the pulled up carpet.

Lunch had been a quick affair. Even with the extra three people that Levy had brought along. For some reason, Shaggy had assumed his wife had meant players when she had said ‘her girls.’ But they were all NPCs. Levy had said that she contacted a few players as well, but NPCs were more trustworthy. Mostly because they could actually see their loyalties.

Shaggy wasn’t sure about bringing in more players on the cop and Obadiah jobs, anyway. They were supposed to be covert jobs and with the ten people currently standing in the apartment’s living room. Shaggy was beginning to think they had let things get out of hand. The three casually dressed magic users were all crouched over the multi-colored symbol etched on the floor. Levy was rubbing her eyes as she informed Shaggy and his pack about what she discovered.

“So something that’ll protect us?” Sybil asked.

Levy shook her head. “It’s not for the people on the floor, but the building itself. Or at least this floor.”

“Makes sense.” Shaggy added. “In a city where giant robots can come crashing through the walls, you’d probably want some protection.”

“Maybe, but these are fairly new.” Said one of Levy’s friend, Cirillia.

The dark-skinned alien woman stood and continued. “Normal construction wards would be paid for by the building’s owner and put in when the building was constructed. These were placed here after the building was built. Probably by your cop friends.”

Shaggy ignored the sting in the alien woman’s comment. Levy’s NPCs had not been happy about working with the police, but something Levy had said seemed to have convinced them. But they were still being snarky about things. But Shaggy had bigger things to be doing.

“So we are fully in the clear?”

“Except those vests. Those are miked and runed up the wazoo. But, I suppose, they are supposed to be. They’ve got audio and video tech all over them, as well as a few tracking and reading runes.”

“Reading runes?” Rita asked.

“Yeah, they give whoever has the other end of the spell a broad idea of the well-being of the person wearing the vest. Nothing damaging. Just a safety measure.” The youngest mage, Mike, said.

The teen flicked his long blond hair back and smiled playfully at Rita. Shaggy felt the woman give a mental snort over the pack link. He and his pack had to stifle chuckles as Rita just stared at the wannabe Casanova. He had been hitting on Rita since Vil’N’s. A loud clang interrupted the awkward moment, and they all turned to the center of the living room. Cekrass and Levy’s other mage were placing the vests in the crate.

Shaggy figured that the metal crate the cops had given them would probably stop any eavesdropping the police wanted to do. Then Gina mentioned she could rune up the box so that they’d be doubly protected. The short drow woman with midnight black hair was currently crouched next to the case and was drawing little symbols all along the box’s exterior. Once she was done, she turned to Levy and gave a wide smile.

“We are in the clear, love.”

Shaggy clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Very good. So we can get started. We have two missions before us. One is the abduction and neutralization of Grant Yel’nix’int. We need to take him in broad daylight and in front of his guards.”

“That makes sense. Yel’nix’int is a huge supporter of the Super’s First Movement. His entire protection detail are all Supes. You grab him out from under them and you’ll make them look like idiots.” Cirillia said.

“Supers First?” Vick asked and Shaggy was happy that his own NPCs were oblivious as he was.

Mike groaned. “They are a group of Anti-mundane aliens and other supers. They believe that aliens and humans with mutant powers are superior to the non-enhanced kind.”

Levy raised an eyebrow. “What about the aliens with strengths that are almost comparable to Super powers? Or mages?”

“They say that if you were born with those abilities, then you are a mundane. You need to have come into your powers another way. Mutation, lab explosion, government experimentation. That way, they can say that you were ‘chosen’ to be superior.”

Gina cut in. “As for mages, they are lukewarm on us overall.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Shaggy said, bringing the conversation back around. “We grab him loud, and eliminate him quiet. We are going to need to get rid of the body.”

Levy snorted. “Piece of cake, dear. Cirillia?”

Taking Levy’s cue, the other magic user straighten up and waved her arms around. Soon, a lime green blob bubbled and hissed in the air. Shaggy’s nose stung with the acrid smell of acid and he and his pack took a few steps back.

“Great. Uhh… I guess that puts you on the snatch and grab team for Grandpa Spook’s job. Cekrass, Tom, Vick? I want y’all on that as well. Sybil, Rita, and I will hit a few dealers for the cops.”

“AHEM!” Levy coughed theatrically.

Shaggy raised his hands. “Hey, I didn’t want to speak for you, love. We are going to have to wear the fancy tracking vests while we work.”

“Sure, you just want to run around with your harem and leave your wife out of it.”

Shaggy blinked and realized that he had put the two women members of his pack on his team. He slapped himself in his face and groaned loudly as his wife cackled. He had wanted Cekrass because of his size and how easily he was to spot, Vick for overwatch, and Tom… so that the guy would be out of his hair. Sybil and Rita were for the same reasons. Sybil for long range and Rita for up close and he would DPS.

Judging by his wife’s smirk, she had probably figured out the dynamic and was giving him shit about. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to his side, growling.

“Wolves mate for life, hun. You’re stuck with me.”

Levy giggled and shoved him away slightly. “Sure, sure. I’m with you. Gina, Mike, you can join us or stay here and get this place squared away.”

Mike seemed to think about it, but Gina immediately said. “I’ll stay here!”

When everyone raised an eyebrow at her excited tone, she coughed awkwardly. “Ahem, I mean. Y’know, so that someone is watching the home front. We need to get this place warded up and protected. Not to mention I want to place a few look-away spells around the entrance.”

“Is that going to mess with us?” Shaggy asked.

Gina looked apologetic as she nodded. “Yeah. But I just need a bit of your hair and I can key the spell to ignore you. That way, we can come and go as we please.”

Shaggy gave an incredulous look to his wife, who was still loosely in his arms. But she nodded happily.

“Gina’s loyalty is at eighty-two. We’ll be fine.” She whispered.

Shaggy shrugged and reached up. He pulled a short hair from his head and handed it over. His pack followed closely behind. Although when it came to Cekrass, the bald lizard had to scrape a few scales from the back of his hand. Once that was all done, Mike seemed to come to a decision.

“I’m going to stay as well. I can help get protections up and keep an eye on that Luis kid.”

Shaggy snorted. When they had returned from lunch, Luis had been waiting outside the building like a puppy waiting for its master. The instant dislike between the two boys reeked of teenage testosterone and petty posturing. But Luis had been a good watchman. His small crew had noticed two black sedans circling the block and a few obvious cops walking by.

Shaggy had given him a few more credits, and they had gone on their way. Levy had laughed at his actions. Saying that he was acting like a bigshot. Throwing his money around to placate the locals. Mike had loudly insisted that ‘such rabble’ weren’t required to watch the building. Luis had done little more than give the young mage the stink-eye, but Levy, Gina, and Cirillia had all chided the boy.

Shaggy was more surprised that Luis had stayed his hand. Apparently, the young punk knew a good thing when he found it. Of course, he could probably have decided that it wasn’t worth it to beat Mike up. For whatever reason, Shaggy silently decided to not let the two boys mix so much. He was about to say as much when Levy beat him to it.

“You leave that boy alone, Mike. He’s just a punk trying to make his way in the world. Same as you.”

Mike snorted. “Please. I studied magic and got accepted into the Mistress’s dimension. What is he doing? Shaking down street thugs and little old ladies for pocket change?”

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“We all gotta start somewhere.” Shaggy growled, glaring at Mike The Mage.

The boy seemed alright, but that had been a pretty elitist statement and Shaggy wasn’t a fan of the mindset. Levy placed a calming hand on his shoulder and eased him back toward his pack mates. Their proximity helped the annoyed and angry feelings disperse slightly. Levy walked toward Mike and flicked his forehead.

“There are non-magical people out in the world who work just as hard as you do. Leave him alone... or else.”

Levy’s threat was spoken calmly and with little anger. Even so, the room went silent, watching Mike for his response. The young mage looked around before throwing up his hands and muttering acceptance under his breath.

“Great. Now, love, let’s get these damn vests on and hunt down our first drug dealer.”

“Don’t forget the rest of the stuff in that crate, boss.”

Sybil’s reminder brought Shaggy’s mind back to his deal with Xelthub. Besides the vests, there were supposed to be several other bits of equipment to go through.

“Good looking out.” Shaggy said, as the Cekrass and the other team left.

He moved over to the crate and yanked it open roughly. A loud screeching metal sounded in protest.

“Uh, I think that was locked, boss.” Rita mumbled.

“Well, it isn’t now.” Shaggy laughed as he reached down and grabbed.

Several slim, black batons came up in his hand. About the size of his wrist, the ran the length of his arm and had three silver bands along the head. Shaggy guessed these were the standard issue stun batons carried by most of the APD. Sybil leaned in reached in a pulled out a silver gun in a holster. As she inspected it, Levy was looking at the batons.

“They’re enchanted.” She said, pointing toward the base of the weapons.

Near the handle were a series of runes itched into the baton’s handles. Shaggy turned the batons over to find the same runes all along the weapons. He chortled.

“Hehe. Seems like overkill.”

Levy grabbed a baton and gave it a few test swings. “It’s probably to enhance the effect. If you have multiple magic-users enchant the same enchantment on an item, it can strengthen it.”

“So what does it do?” Rita asked as she fiddled with a set of radios she pulled from the crate.

Levy stopped what she was doing and gasped. Realization dawning on her face.

“I forgot about your phone!” She shouted, looking at her husband.

Shaggy shrugged and sighed. “It’s fine. We can get it later. But Rita’s right, what do these rune things do?”

“Depends on who set them. Runic magic is all intent based. Although there are a set of accepted runes everyone uses sometimes. But I haven’t really looked into it. You know I never play a crafter in games. I’ll ask Gina and Mike.”

She wandered back toward the other two mages as Sybil strapped on a third pistol. Shaggy raised an eyebrow at the petite woman and glanced at her from head to toe. She had a pistol on her hip, under her left arm, and she was strapping on a thigh holster with another gun. Seeing that she hadn’t noticed his gaze, Shaggy coughed.

“AHEM!”

“What?!” Sybil started, glancing up. “No one else uses guns and these are pretty sweet. Even if I don’t trust those little etchings on the handles. K-Tech manufactured Mk. VI energy pistols with stun settings, and the newest branded energy supply. Some say it isn’t as powerful, but I bet they do just fine.”

Shaggy looked over at the slim silver pistols. They were extremely minimalist in design. Without the need for a magazine, the handle was little more than a battery housing with a grip. The barrel was a circular tube with some sights on top, and he didn’t see any rifling in the barrel, either. Though he supposed with an energy weapon, it probably wasn’t needed. On the side of every pistol was a tiny dial that Shaggy guessed set the power level of the weapon.

“Why are they silver? Seems like they would stick out.”

Sybil nodded. “No idea. Most K-tech products prefer that matte black look. Maybe these are variants for the police department? Made to look more noticeable?”

It was as good a reason as any. Shaggy shrugged and turned to his other pack mate. Rita looked like she finally got the radio working and was slowly testing each channel. A crackling of voice cascaded quietly through the air as she rapidly searched. Seeing him looking, she grinned.

“These cops are using the old D-Wave networks. Those things are old as hell, but I guess if you want to save money…” She trailed off as the voices finally stopped and she glanced at the radio in her hand. “AH-HA! Found one! We got our own channel. Though I doubt it’s completely free, we’ll be able to talk without getting interrupted by other people’s chatter.”

She set about switching the other radios to the right channel as Levy came back with her baton. Shaggy smelled smoke and saw that some of the black finish on the baton’s handle were scorched slightly. He raised an eyebrow.

“Anti-Masking charm. Whoever magic’d up these things had enough juice to put some pretty decent protections on them.”

“Well, they are from the police, so maybe they have some powerful wizards on staff?”

Levy shook her head. “I think it’s more likely that it was multiple magic users. A powerful charm would’ve reflected anything we threw at it. This merely withstood it. So they probably have a bunch of low-level magic users all enchanting their gear.”

Shaggy nodded, and he strapped on a pair of batons and put on the vest. Levy moved to help him as Sybil and Rita started doing the same. Once he was zipping and buttoning up the tac-vest, Levy started putting on her own while saying.

“Oh, and everything they gave us is recording what we are saying.”

Shaggy and his two pack mates froze as they finished putting on the vests. Shaggy thought about it for a few seconds and figured that Xelthub had told them that everything was recording them. He mentally went through his last few conversations as Sybil and Rita looked at the guns and radios. Levy chuckled as she finished putting on her own vest.

“Don’t worry about it. Just don’t say anything you’ll regret. I’ve got people on it.” She shot them all a wink and Shaggy shook the thought from his mind.

Once they were all geared up and ready, Shaggy and the others left the fourth floor. The girl from Luis’ crew was waiting out on the stairwell as Shaggy and his friends came bursting out of the fourth floor. Her eyes widened slightly at the sight of their gear, but she quickly got control of her facial expressions. Moving toward Shaggy, she asked politely.

“Can we help with anything?”

Shaggy was about to say no when Levy’s touch on his arm brought him around. Looking back at his wife, he tried to communicate with his eyes. But she simply waved him off and asked.

“We are looking for the local big dog. Any ideas, sweetie?”

The young girl grimaced a bit at being addressed as ‘Sweetie’, but she nodded. “You want George.”

“George?” Shaggy asked, more incredulous than anything. Whoever heard of a gang boss named George?

“Yeah, he runs the Westside Lampers. Drugs, girls, protection. They run it all between here and Brentwood.”

Shaggy looked at his pack and his wife. Rita and Sybil sent him positive vibes through the link while his wife just grinned at him. Shaggy chuckled as he nodded. Turning back to the girl, he asked.

“Sounds like that’s what we’re looking for. Where can we find them?”

The girl ran her eyes over all of them. Shaggy could feel her weighing up their gear and coming to what were probably correct assumptions. Once she was done, her stare turned hard, and she looked at Shaggy.

“Take us with you.”

Shaggy coughed awkwardly. “Heh, kid, you know we’re not…”

“I’m seventeen and I know what you’re about to do. We want in.”

“Still a kid, and does Luis know about this?”

The girl went silent as the answer became evident on her face. She had clearly not told Luis about this little ambush. The fact then none of the other young punks were with her also spoke to the fact that she was making this little overture alone.

“We need protection. We are still too small-time. Luis doesn’t see it, but I do. Soon we are going to get into it with some bigger faction and get taken out.”

Shaggy sighed and was ready to tell the girl to take a hike. But the pull from his pack and the feeling of his wife’s eyes on him stopped him. They really couldn’t be taking on charity cases everywhere they went. Not to mention a bunch of kids who didn’t know what they were getting into. He was still going to tell the young girl to beat it, when suddenly the stairwell heated up and red flame burst from the girl’s hands.

“We AIN’T going out like that! Hear me!? So we are going with you!”

Shaggy watched the flames roar out from the girl’s upturned hands. Dual pillars of flames climbed into the air almost scorching the ceiling. Shaggy grimaced as he remembered Luis’s power set, Ice. They were a fire and ice pair. Not bad, but that didn’t mean the rest of the kids were worth a damn. Rita shifted behind Shaggy.

“We need some people topside, boss.” Rita whispered into his ear.

Shaggy groaned as Sybil sent feelings of agreement down the link. The noise was interrupted by footsteps rushing up the stairs, and the girl quickly doused her fire. But it was too late, as Luis’s voice rang up toward them.

“Mariposa? Is that you?!”

“Oh, mierda.” The young girl, Mariposa, muttered.

Soon, Luis and several bat and pipe wielding teenagers were rushing up the stairs. All aiming for Shaggy and his team. But Mariposa got between the two groups and held out a hand. Luis and his thugs jerked to a stop on the stairs and glanced between the young Mariposa and Shaggy. Luis was huffing and puffing from running up the stairs and was scanning Mariposa for injuries.

“I was making a deal, Luis.”

“What deal?!”

“The one we talked about.”

Luis sighed. “We agreed it was too soon, Mari.”

“No. You and your cadre of posers agreed. I knew we had to act fast, and I was right. They are making their move now.”

Shaggy wiped a hand down his face as he placed his back on the wall. All he wanted to do was beat up a couple of drug-dealers and make some money. Was that too much to ask? His feelings were sent to Sybil and Rita, who both looked at him, grinning. Meanwhile, Levy moved to address Luis and his band of punks.

“We were just coming to some arrangements.”

“Honey…” Shaggy groaned.

Levy spun and pierced him with her look. “What? Rita said we need the troops and what better way than to have tryouts?”

“This isn’t a sports game. Some of them won’t be coming back.” Shaggy argued.

Levy shrugged. “That’s the choice they make.”

Turning, she addressed the crowd of punks and Luis. “We are going to hit this George character. If you come with us, come ready for a fight. If you don’t want to, that’s fine too. We need people to watch our home front.”

With that, Levy marched forward and straight through the crowd of teens. Shaggy sighed and peeled himself from the wall. Several of Luis’s thugs followed his wife. So did Sybil and Rita. Soon it was just Mariposa, Luis, and him standing at the top step of the stairwell. The young girl was staring daggers and Luis until eventually he shifted out of the way and she rushed downward.

Shaggy heard Luis sigh and couldn’t help but agree. “They don’t get any easier to deal with.”

Luis grunted. “Family is family, though.”

Shaggy nodded as he adjusted the tight fit of the tac-vest. Luis glanced at him and waved a hand.

“Don’t suppose you have anymore of those things?”

“Ha! Trust me, you wouldn’t want one. Too many strings attached.”

As Shaggy started down the stairs, he heard Luis following behind. The sounds of more and more steps joining them filled the stairwell. Shaggy called over his shoulder.

“How many damn kids do you have in here?”

Luis chuckled. “Hahaha! That’s where you ended up, Perro. The island of forgotten punks.”

“It’s gonna be the island of dead kids if this turns into shit. Also, did you just call me a dog?”

“Pfft. We can handle ourselves. You just watch your own ass.”

Shaggy grunted but said nothing. He waited for the kid to answer the second part of his question. When Luis remained silent, he turned and looked up at the taller young man. Luis grinned and raised his hands up in a clawing motion. He moved them through the air like he was scratching at something and Shaggy sighed.

“I’m a wolf, damn it!”

“Sure thing, Perrito.”

Shaggy sighed again and hurried down the stairs. He wasn’t sure what they were going to look like. A bunch of teens and some villains dressed in police-grade gear. But he was sure they were going to draw attention. He was also sure that Xelthub was going to give him an earful once he watched today’s recording. Shaggy rushed out of the building and into the evening sun, wondering how the rest of the day was going to go.