Shaggy and Levy followed Mariposa down to the apartment’s basement. They passed a few other tenants on the stairs. But none of them made eye contact with Mariposa, let alone Shaggy or his wife. Luis had sputtered a bit when Mari told him to stay on the fourth floor, but the older boy stayed. Vick and Tom convinced the boy to help clean the gear. Guns and tactical gear were always fun for the whole family.

Rita and Sybil also elected to stay upstairs and keep an eye on the cops. There were still a few cars out on the street. Most of which were probably unmarked police vehicles. Levy thought it was only a matter of time until the cops brought in their own Wizard or Sorcerer. But given how understaffed the department seemed, Shaggy doubted it. At least they wouldn’t be by soon. Maybe by the time the cops got their shit together, they’d have their secret passage out of here.

“So, what are we looking for? Sewer access? Underground tunnel? Maintenance tunnel?” Shaggy asked excitedly as they hit the first floor.

Mariposa rounded a corner and continued down some stairs, answering over her shoulder. “The last one.”

“Y’all just have access to a maintenance tunnel down here?” Levy asked.

“Shit no!” Mariposa cackled. “The city boarded it up ages ago. It was supposed to carry all sorts of cables and electrical shit into the neighborhood. Part of the New Austin Restoration Plan. But it didn’t get that far.”

They went down another flight of stairs and Shaggy saw a door at the bottom marked ‘Storage.’

“Why didn’t the restoration get very far?” Levy asked.

“Because! It was too damn expensive. So the city fixed up the nicer neighborhoods. But the rest of us? We’re all shit out of luck.”

“What about K-Tech? They didn’t donate any funds to the city for renewal?”

“Pfft. Fucked if I know,” Mariposa grumbled as she kicked the bottom door open.

The smell of dust and sweat assaulted Shaggy’s nose. He had to take a few seconds as he tried to reorient from the smells. Levy and Mari slowed, but he waved them forward. The storage clearly hadn’t been used lately. Once he had collected himself, Shaggy followed the two ladies inside and looked around.

His initial impressions of the storage room were clearly off. There were several fenced off storage areas full of random junk. Bicycles, skis, big and small boxes were everywhere. Both the left and the right sides of the room were sectioned off into different units. All numbered by floor and room. Shaggy and Levy followed the young girl down the center aisle. Past all the chain link storage units heading for the far wall.

Doing some quick mental math, Shaggy realized the basement floor was larger than the apartment complex above. It made sense, if every apartment owner got their own unit, then the basement needed to be pretty wide. Although with how dusty everything was, he didn’t think people used it often. He briefly thought about having his pack go through the various units for stuff to steal. But Mari and Luis’s little crew probably already did that.

Once they reached the far wall, Mariposa moved to the side and waved a hand.

“Ta-da!”

Shaggy raised an eyebrow. “Yep. That sure is a door. You gonna open it?”

Mari opened her mouth to say something, but Levy slapped his chest.

“It’s warded, dear.”

Shaggy looked up at his wife. Her purple eyes were aglow with power and she was studying the door. Mariposa sneered at him and he flipped her the bird behind his wife’s back. Not fooled, Levy smacked him again.

“Hey! Shouldn't you be focused on all that magic hoo-doo?”

“Don’t flip the child off.” Levy said as she crouched down to look at the bottom of the door.

Shaggy scoffed. “Sure. But it’s okay to take the kid into a gang fight.”

“I’m right here, y’know!” Mariposa grumbled loudly.

Levy stood again and gave Mariposa a stunning smile. “I know, Mari. I’m sorry.”

Mari nodded, assuaged, and Levy turned to Shaggy. They communicated silently for a brief period before Levy sighed and waved at the door.

“It’s some kind of Everlock Ward. They didn’t care if people found the door, they just didn’t want anyone to open it.”

Shaggy moved toward the door and tested the door handle. Once sure he would not get magically jolted, he twisted the handle with all his might.

“So can we… hmph… Brute… urgh… force it?”

“Clearly not.” Mariposa snarked.

Shaggy stopped himself from flipping the kid the bird again and put both his hands on the door handle. Metal creaked and he could feel something about to give, but then the door handle twisted in his palm and reset itself. It was like the door fought him to stay closed. Even with his enhanced strength. Shaggy wrung his hands out as he looked at his wife.

Levy’s eyes danced with amusement as she waved a hand. Purple glyphs filled the air, and she muttered a few words under her breath. Once she was done, Shaggy had to get out of the way as the purple symbols in the air dived toward the door. The symbols stuck to the door and hovered there as if stuck in fly paper. Mari and Shaggy looked at Levy.

The drow woman had a smug smile on her face as she turned around.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“That should do the trick. It’ll take a while, but no one will know that we got it open. I imagine the city has some kind of alert set up if one of these wards fails.”

Shaggy shrugged. “If they do, I doubt they are watching it that closely.”

“True. But better safe than sorry.”

“Where did you learn all that?” Mariposa asked as she followed Levy back the way they came.

Shaggy followed the pair as Levy explained about her time in Korrigan’s pocket dimension. Apparently, his wife had spent a lot of her early game in Wizard School. Something that cracked Shaggy up to no end. But Mari seemed enraptured with magic. It was the first time Shaggy saw the young girl acting her age. She pelted his wife with questions all the way upstairs.

According to Mari, going to magic school was a pretty costly endeavor. And that was only IF you had the talent for magic in the first place. But, according to Mari, getting tested for Magical ability was also pretty pricey. But she and her brother had even less chance of having magic. Because they were already mutants.

“Oh, boo-hoo. I can only throw fire from my hands.” Shaggy mocked. Drawing glares from both women.

Levy waved him off as she put an arm around Mariposa’s shoulder. “Ignore him. He’s just angry that he smells like a dog. Tell me what you can do with your fire, sweetie.”

Mariposa looked a little uncomfortable with Levy’s closeness, but she went into a description of her and her brother’s power sets. Shaggy only half listened as he followed them up the stairs. As he did, he put his nose to his armpit.

“BLEGH!” Shaggy recoiled as the smell of sweat hit his nose.

Both ladies turned to regard him again. But Shaggy straightened his back and tried to ignore his stinging nostrils. Once both Levy and Mari turned away again, Shaggy let out a loud breath. Through all his time in the game, he had thought very little about a shower. Most games nowadays would add that layer of realism, but it wasn’t that bad. Or maybe his werewolf senses made it seem worse than it was.

“I need to find a shower.” Shaggy thought as they marched upstairs.

It was a quick march to the fourth floor, and that’s when the yelling hit their ears. Mari sighed as Shaggy rushed around her and Levy. The voices were obviously coming from their Police-assigned room and Shaggy saw Cekrass and Cirillia outside the door looking in. It was a mix of voices all shouting angrily and Shaggy was sure he knew who was to blame.

Sure enough, as soon as he squeezed past Cekrass’ bulk, Shaggy saw the two young men almost nose to nose. Vick was seated on a crate nearby, enjoying the show as Tom tried to pull Luis away from Mike. Gina was holding the young wizard back as the two boys yelled at each other.

“Yea! I bet you had it so rough! How much your parents pay to get your magic unlocked?!”

“Oh waa-waa! Little Mutant has it so bad! You think I haven’t worked for shit?! I worked for everything I am. You and your lot just stay in the gutter and bitch! None of you have the actual tenacity to do anything!”

Shaggy sighed as he watched the two kids yell over each other. Rita and Sybil were at the windows, occasionally looking down at the street. But mostly they were also enjoying the show. Through the pack link, Shaggy felt that his entire crew was ready to pounce if either of the boys got violent. So Shaggy leaned against the wall and waited as Levy and Mariposa dashed into the room. Mari immediately jumped on her brother’s side and Levy stood over her should eyeing Mike.

The two boys eventually ran themselves out with a little more chest bumping. Mari actually ignited another round of yelling as Mike went after Luis’ lack of proper care to the younger girl. Levy tried to intercede a few times, but Mike seemed adamant in telling Luis and Mari how wrong they were living their lives. Once both boys had yelled themselves out, Mike finally turned his looked around the room.

Shaggy wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think the young magic user was getting a lot of sympathetic looks. He had basically told Luis and Mari it was their fault they were poor. But then again, Luis was also making a few assumptions about Mike. Shaggy didn’t know either of the boy’s life stories and, frankly, he didn’t care. Levy, on the other hand, seemed highly annoyed that she had been ignored for most of the boy’s argument.

“Mike. There is an Everlock Ward in the basement. I am currently trying to wear it down. Go check on the progress.” Levy ordered through clenched teeth.

“Leeevy…” Mike whined.

“Get the hell out, Mike!” Levy yelled, calling a ball of purple energy into her hand.

Mike yipped, clearly afraid, and dashed from the room. Once he was gone, Levy turned to Luis and Mari and bowed her head.

“I’m sorry about him. Regardless of his issues, that was unprofessional.”

“Yeah, and if there’s one thing, we are. It’s professional.” Rita muttered.

Shaggy bit back a chuckle as Levy glared at his pack member. Rita looked unapologetic as she turned back to looking out the window. Sybil just shrugged as Tom went back to sitting next to Vick. Shaggy pushed himself from the wall and walked over to a huffing Luis.

“What the hell sparked all of that?”

Luis’ already red face turned three shades redder as Rita’s voice came over Shaggy’s shoulder.

“I asked Luis if he wanted to eat with us.”

Shaggy could feel the smugness coming from the older woman. It took Shaggy a few seconds to get it, but when he did, he whirled on his pack mate.

“You purposefully set the two up. Didn’t you?!”

Rita didn’t even turn away from the window to look him in the eye. “They were going to get into it eventually, boss. This way, we were all here for it.”

“We all sort of knew Mike was out in the hall. ‘Keeping an eye’ on Luis.” Sybil added.

“More like watching Rita.” Tom said with a sour look.

Rita turned to glare at Tom as Mari asked angrily.

“So, you set my brother up?”

Rita waved the girl away. “It wasn’t going to come to anything. Mike just has a giant chip on his damn shoulder for some reason. This way, the worst of it is out of the way and we can all move on. Also, maybe now that blond-haired upstart will leave me alone.”

“Maybe they should just fight and get it over with.”

“Shaggy!” Levy admonished as Mari clutched her brother’s side.

“What? They could knock some damn sense into each other and we’d be better off without all this damn teen testosterone.”

Luis finally raised a hand and spoke. “I got no problem with smacking the elitist fuck. But I don’t think that’ll solve anything. We’re just too different.”

“Maybe we should send the other one away.” Vick said as he cleaned his gun.

Levy grumbled but said nothing. Gina nodded, though.

“That might be for the best. We all know he only followed us because he thought Levy was lying about having a husband.”

The room suddenly went quiet as Shaggy raised a questioning eyebrow at his wife. Levy’s dark cheeks went darker as she smiled at Shaggy. She waved a hand.

“It was a harmless crush from a kid. Plus, he’s good with elemental magic. I figured he’d switch targets as soon as he realized you were real.”

“Yeah, to me. Fuck you very much.” Rita grumbled.

“Still meant he wasn’t focused on me, so I figured we could use him.”

Shaggy nodded a few times before he said. “Okay then. Well, I’m going to go kill a wizard and then take a shower. I suggest everyone else settle in. We gotta wait for Levy’s spell to wear down the door. Once that’s done, we can work on the next steps.”

“Which are?” Most of his pack asked at once as Levy shot him an annoyed look.

Shaggy ignored his wife’s look and grew his claws. “More spook missions and maybe some stealth recon on the Wild Bunch.”

“You sure, boss? You’re not so good at the stealth stuff.” Tom said.

“Well, it’s a good thing I have you then, isn’t it?”

Shaggy turned on his heel and left the room. Levy was hot on his heels, arguing to spare Mike’s life. If only so she didn’t take a loyalty hit from the other magic users.