A Werewolf In Under-Town

Shaggy kicked off the concrete wall and launched himself forward. He had to squeeze past Trevor and Maven, who were fighting in the hallway. Once he was clear, he shifted his hands into claws and slashed at the closest Wild Bunch Thug. It was a bipedal possum or an alien equivalent. But his skin and fur were shredded under Shaggy’s claws just the same.

A coyote-man with a bestial snout launched himself at Shaggy. Mouth opened wide to take a bite. Shaggy threw himself against the wall and held out a clawed hand. The animal man bit him down on Shaggy’s palm. But closing his hand, Shaggy wrenched the yelping coyote to the floor and used his other claw to stab down into the man’s brain.

With a loud squelch, he removed his claws and looked around the tunnel. They had been fighting in tight-spaces lately. Which had helped with the Bunch’s numbers. They were down here in force, and Shaggy was eager to learn why. But none of the thugs they had met so far were interested in talking. Although, to be fair, neither were Shaggy’s new teen friends.

“Well, that makes four patrols down this little rat hole.” Shaggy pondered aloud.

But Maven and Forn simply finished looting as Trevor wiped off his metal bat. Ever since Holly had logged out, Maven had been operating on auto-pilot. Traveling down the tunnels, killing thugs, looting, and then moving on. Forn wasn’t any better. But at least she would say the odd word here and there. Surprisingly, it was Trevor that proved the most talkative. Although he turned taciturn a few times.

Shaggy gathered that the four were obviously real-world friends, and that this was an argument they had before. According to Trevor, Holly was the type of person to do everything in the most efficient way possible. That included playing games. Maven would go along with this shortest-path method of gaming for a while. But then declared that she wasn’t having fun anymore. Holly would disagree, Maven would argue, and then one of them would stomp off. Then, anywhere from an hour to a day later, the two would reconcile.

Shaggy thought it all sounded like the most tiring thing ever. But what was he going to do? Fix a teenager’s personal relationships for them? Hell no! That type of thing was reserved for adults with too much time on their hands. The teens would work it out… eventually… maybe.

“Seriously, how long has it been?” Shaggy whispered to Trevor.

The boy snapped his fingers, and his bat disappeared. “I don’t know. Like, thirty minutes or something. But we can’t set this thing to a clock. She’ll snap out of it when she snaps out of it. Just…”

Shaggy raised an eyebrow as the young boy trailed off.

“Just don’t be standing next to her when she snaps back. She can get kind of punchy. And with that metal suit of hers, she packs a hell of a punch.”

Shaggy nodded and followed after Maven and Forn. The tunnels weren’t that diverse as they traveled below Austin’s streets. Just grey walls and metal pipes carrying lord-knows-what to god-knows-where. Although Shaggy could see where someone had dug into sections of the walls. It was like the tunnels beneath the blocks weren’t originally connected. But someone had connected them. Judging from the lack of equipment on the Bunch gangsters they had killed, Shaggy doubted it was the Wild Bunch coming for them.

Someone had wanted some underground tunnels under Austin. But not too deep that they ventured toward Under-Town level though. So they simply connected the maintenance tunnels. But in order to do what?

By now, Shaggy assumed that the HLO had nothing to do with this. They were a block away from their neighborhood and firmly cemented in Bunch turf. Which meant he was poking another bee hive while he was still getting stung. But he couldn’t curtail his curiosity. Also, the angry teenage girl in power armor was stomping forward blindly.

Shaggy smirked as he followed along behind the metal behemoth. She and Forn had silently placed themselves at the front and were a decent team. Forn was a wily and slippery player who could angle the enemies toward Maven. While Maven was a damn brute. Her fighting style reminded Shaggy of a child. Throwing haymakers until she was tired and then guarding while she gathered her breath. Luckily, Trevor was there with his bat.

Shaggy wasn’t sure, but he thought the boy was wielding a magic bat. It’s constant disappearing and reappearing seemed to confirm that. But it also seemed to make the kid stronger and tougher. Whenever he was holding it, the boy could turn claws and knives away with his arms. Shaggy was beginning to think it was a pact weapon. A weapon in fantasy games that grew with the user. But he wasn’t sure if that meant that Trevor was a mutant or a mage.

“Door.” Forn said softly.

Shaggy looked forward again and saw Maven and Forn standing silently by an open door. Which was odd, as most of the doors they passed had been magically sealed shut. Shaggy and Trevor hurried over and peered through the door. Another long corridor met their gaze and Shaggy was about to ask for a course of action when Maven started moving. The big metal armor thudded down the new hallway, oblivious to the other members of her party.

Forn sighed softly and followed along as Trevor gave Shaggy a shrug. Shaggy groaned to himself and passed through the open door. But an odd bit of color caught his eye. It was a white symbol on the faded red door. It looked recent and had clearly been drawn with chalk or something equivalent. Adjusting the door, Shaggy got a good look at the symbol and twisted his head in confusion.

The symbol was a simple square with three lines going from top to bottom within it. Shaggy stared at it for a few seconds until it clicked. It was a crude drawing of a cage. But what would the bunch be keeping in cages? Animals? Supplies. With another sigh, Shaggy let the door swing open again and followed the teens.

They weren’t that far ahead, and he’d be able to hear if there was trouble. So instead, he thought about his HLO and Angel problems. The HLO was using the government and under-handed tactics to push people out of the neighborhood. The underhanded tactics were an easy fix. They just needed to bring those actions out into the light and show proof. Ruby was working on that, but Shaggy didn’t want all his eggs in the cat basket. They needed proof themselves. But it couldn’t come from Shaggy or anyone associated with him. That would taint the whole thing. Finding evidence of the HLO’s involvement and then handing off the proof to Derek’s neighborhood watch seemed like the best bet.

Meanwhile, Shaggy had an angel problem. He’d circumvented their tracking software. Which meant they were probably out looking for him. But Levy had said that angels and demons can’t operate in this realm without following proper procedure. So he probably didn’t have to worry about an actual angel. At least not yet. It was more likely that some government stooge would be sent out to locate him and find out why he’d gone rogue. Shaggy was expecting light jail time and a heavy fine for subverting the police or something. He was going to have to keep himself underground for as long as possible. Which was fine. The nature of being a criminal meant people would be looking for you.

Noise from ahead made Shaggy look up from his musings. He’d been walking on auto-pilot for a while. Which is why he hadn’t noticed the noise or the stench. The hallway ended in a well-lit room. It was a decent sized room, about the size of a hotel lobby, and it was packed full odd machines and cages. On the right-hand side, Shaggy could see four large cages filled with animals. To the left were the machines, whirring away and spinning, and against the far left-hand wall was a row of six gurneys. Each holding a human or alien. A few Wild Bunch guards patrolled the large floor between the two areas.

“They’re experimenting on them.” Forn whispered, horrified.

Her voice seemed to be the starting gun for Maven to charge into the room. Shaggy grimaced as the girl’s modulated voice roared as she charged the nearest guard patrol. Forn and Trevor followed their friend as Shaggy sauntered behind them. He wasn’t sure what the Bunch were doing here, but he was going to find out. Information was power, after all.

As Maven and her friends battle the guards, Shaggy hugged the left wall and snuck toward the pretty whirring machines. But nothing seemed to have a terminal or a readout of any kind. The machines were just spitting out reams of data and information that Shaggy couldn’t make sense of. Luckily, Shaggy spotted someone who looked like they had the answers. It was a medusa-like woman in a white lab coat. She was crouched behind one of the machines near the gurneys. The snakes in her hair were hissing wildly, and it looked like they were trying to escape her head.

Grinning to himself, Shaggy pounced over. He landed heavily beside the woman and was about to start aggressively questioning her. But one of the bodies on the gurney caught his eye. It was a human woman. She was wriggling in what looked like pain. Something purple writhed along her skin and Shaggy peered closer until he saw what it was. With a mental groan, Shaggy ran past the scientist and shouted at Maven and the others. They were still knocking the shit out of the Bunch goons.

“STOP!” Shaggy shouted, raising his hands and waving.

Trevor and Forn pulled back while the Bunch guards glowered at him. But Maven was still punching aliens and thugs into the bars of the animal cages. Shaggy hissed as he sprinted forward and slammed into Maven’s arm. Holding one of her arms tight to his body in a bear hug, Shaggy shouted again.

“Stop! They’re-”

Shaggy was cut off as Maven pulled back and hit him. Her modulated voice roared in anger as he tumbled backward.

“VILLAIN!”

Shaggy back stepped as his nose healed back into place. The girl’s punch had done some damage. But his healing was up to it. Maven’s armored foot snapped out and tried to kick him. But Shaggy batted it aside and as best he could, but the sheer weight of all that metal made his hand go numb. With a sigh, Shaggy poked his wolf and fed it his annoyance with this whole situation. Sure, he’d been looking to blow off steam and maybe kill some Bunch bastards. But now he was dealing with teenage nonsense… again.

Maven charged him, her giant metal suit cracking the concrete ground. But Shaggy ignored her as his body grew and twisted. He heard his shirt rip and fed that minor annoyance to his wolf. His transformation finished just as Maven brought both of her armored fists down on his head. Shaggy took the blow and gripped Maven’s arms with his large, claw-like hands. He spread Maven’s armored hands apart as he felt his skull repair itself. His vision unblurred and he roared into Maven’s cockpit.

“THEY’RE CURING THEM!”

Maven struggled in his grasp and Shaggy was surprised to find that even in his man-beast form, he had to focus. Maven’s power armor was pretty damn powerful. Although it was steaming and hissing wildly as Maven thrashed in his grip. Eventually, his words seemed to register with the angry teen and she stopped thrashing about. Shaggy cautiously let the armor go as more Bunch thugs rushed into the room. They were coming from a side room that hadn’t been visible from the hall entrance. Twenty of them surrounded all four of them and Shaggy started to question what he was doing. Thankfully, another voice of reason spoke up.

“This is a lab studying to reverse the process of hybridization. Please cease all this at once!”

The woman with snakes for hair was standing unsteadily as Shaggy turned to her. She meant his gaze only briefly as she turned to the Bunch guards.

“This was a simple misunderstanding, everyone. Let’s get this all cleared up and talk things out like adults.”

“But, Doc. You know who that is, Don’t ya?” said an unseen guard from within the crowd.

Shaggy tensed slightly as he assumed they were talking about him. But the gorgon merely blew out a breath.

“Yes, and I don’t care. My duty is to my patients. If ya’ll want to have it out, do it outside.”

Shaggy scanned the crowd again. He saw more than a few faces that looked like they wanted to take her up on that. But Maven interrupted things as she popped her armor’s cockpit. The short blonde girl stood from her seat and glared around at everyone.

“What the fuck is going on?” She almost whined.

Shaggy rolled his eyes and released his transformation. The tension was draining from the room quickly. So he decided to just ride this out. Forn and Trevor pulled closer to Maven as she got down off her armor. Shaggy turned to the doctor and smiled.

“Looks like we’ll be staying for a bit. No epic battles, for now at least.”

The gorgon glared at him but said nothing else. Shaggy shrugged his shoulder and sighed. Maven was still glaring around the room. But no one was paying attention to her. All eyes were on Shaggy and he could feel his wolf howl at the attention.