A Werewolf In Under-Town

They walked into the bar arm and arm, pretending to be just a normal couple. But judging by the stares from the few people in the bar, few were buying it. Shaggy in his leather jacket and heavy boots probably wouldn't have stood out in a normal bar. But this place was clearly for a higher class of clientele. In fact, Levy in her black blouse and slim black pants fit in far better. But one glare at the few people who stared too long, and they were left alone.

The bartender caught and kept Shaggy's glare for a few long seconds until the bulky alien thrust his thumb at a sign over his head. 'No powers.' read the small wooden sign. Shaggy gave the man a nod as Levy spotted their target. The gunslinger Maya stood out like a sore thumb. Partially because of the way she was dressed, but also because she had an army of shot glasses in front of her.

Getting drunk in game was possible. But most found it disorienting. One moment would be drunk as hell and then the timer would wear off and you'd snap back to normal with a headache debuff. Now AGE Incorporated claimed to have a more realistic take on alcohol. But unfortunately, Shaggy was immune to anything less than the hardest of alien liquor. Levy dragged him over to the surly-looking woman and they immediately popped down on either side of her.

Maya froze her drinking long enough to give them the side-eye before she downed another shot glass.

"I'm not interested if your cat's up a tree or if you've been robbed. In fact, I'm off duty. Probably for forever."

Shaggy smirked, but didn't say anything. He and Levy had planned this over the radio in the time it took Levy to join him. The HLO communicator was a tricky bit of hardware. With a comm unit and tracker embedded in the thing, they both agreed that would have to go first. He leaned in to capture Maya's eye as Levy muttered a spell behind her. Maya's pale, angular face was reddening at the cheeks, but she still looked fairly pissed.

"Jeez, she was barely in here for fifteen minutes before we walked in." Shaggy thought.

"Long enough to get drunk." Rita answered.

Shaggy gave a small half-nod in acknowledgment, which seemed to confuse the other player. Maya's scowl deepened until Levy released her spell. A purple mist flew from her mouth and encircled the large white communicator on the Hero's wrist. Maya snapped into action, almost faster than Shaggy could track. Soon a revolver was pointed at Levy's face as Shaggy used his hand to block the other one from going under his chin. Shaggy spotted the purple shimmer around Levy and relaxed as Maya's red face looked between them.

"Hey! None of that!" The bartender screamed.

Levy, Maya, and Shaggy all turned to the bartender. "Shut up!"

The big alien scowled and hurried to the other end of the bar where a terminal was. Shaggy rolled his eyes and contacted his pack again.

"Cut the power."

"On it." said Stanley.

The three of them stayed like that as the power in the building flickered and died. The indistinct murmur of the patrons and bartender filled the room. But Shaggy and Levy watched Maya with interest. Soon the bar emptied as the bartender slinked around the bar. Shaggy watched everyone go without a care in the world. His pack was watching, and they knew to stop any nosy people from getting in their way.

"Don't have long, hun." Levy giggled.

"I know, dear."

Maya looked between the two of them again, searching their eyes in turn. Soon, she holstered her guns at the same time and hissed.

"Players."

"Super-evil, Villain players." Levy cackled, wiggling her fingers.

She waved a hand, and one bottle at the back of the bar flew toward her hand. She took one of Maya's empty shot glasses and poured herself one as Maya downed another of her own. Shaggy watched the ladies drink and waited for a chance to start their pitch, but Maya spoke up as soon as she swallow her liquor.

"What do y'all want?"

Shaggy sat on his bar stool and recited the questions they had planned. He wasn't going to ask them, of course, but he thought it best to lie out the conversation in his head. Meanwhile, his senses were open, and he was listening for any intruders. Levy finished her own drink slowly and then pulled a face, clearly unhappy.

"Well, that certainly doesn't belong on the top shelf." Levy stuck her tongue out a little before she set the drink down and answered Maya. "We just saw an unhappy player and decided to drop in, of course. What happened in the big ole convoy that has you so upset, dear?"

"Guess that makes you smooth one." Maya said, eyeing Levy carefully.

Levy's response was to shrug her slim shoulder and smile. Maya then turned to Shaggy, and he shifted his hand into its clawed form. The gunslinger nodded slowly, then a hint of recognition flitted across her face.

"Wait, weren't you famous?"

Shaggy scoffed. "Forum famous. Which gave me about a week of in-game fame. Although we pissed off a few of the bigger guilds. I wonder what the big thing is now."

"Dimension hopping." Levy answered. "A lot of the guilds think that some of the rarest mats can only be found in pocket dimensions. Mostly thanks to the Cog Raid. But there are a few people still talking about you. Mostly people trying to bring in your bounty."

Maya raised an eyebrow at that. "Got a bounty, do you?"

"Fifty-thousand credits from the leader of the RiffRaffs." Shaggy nodded. "Stepped on his toes during the Cog Raid."

"And what's stopping me from collecting?"

Shaggy snorted. "Besides my lovely wife?"

Maya nodded as she dropped back another drink. Shaggy took a big whiff of the air and gave the player his best feral grin.

"Well, rubber bullets aren't going to work too well on me, for one."

Maya froze halfway to picking up her next drink and swore under her breath. "Fucking pansy-ass HLO."

"Yeah, having to go non-lethal can be an issue." Levy nodded. "But can we get back to the conversation we were trying to have?"

Maya nodded as she placed both her hands on the bar. "Sure. Y'all wanted to know what has me so upset about the convoy? Well, I kinda wanted to play this game to be the hero. Y'know standing up for the little guy, hunting down evil? Come to find out, being the good guy has a lot of fucking red tape."

"Like ignoring a town that's on fire?" Levy asked.

Maya snapped her head in Levy direction, her eyes searching for something. "Look, I get that our job was protecting the trucks. But when I can hear people screaming and dying, that's a step too far. I don't care if they aren't real."

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Shaggy shrugged before nodding his head a little. "Reasonable."

"Says the Villain."

"Hey! I may be a Villain, but I'm not an asshole. I'm not trying to hurt little kids or people who can't defend themselves. But if someone has something I want, I'm going to take it from them."

"That's called stealing."

"And we are very good at it," Levy interjected. "We've stolen all sorts of things. Imprisoned pixies, credits, food. The list can go on and on. But you know what we haven't stolen yet? Books."

"Magical books." Shaggy added.

Maya's eyes brightened with realization before she coughed out a laugh. The laugh went on for a long while, turning into a guffaw that echoed in the empty bar. Levy and Shaggy glanced at each other before they each looked around. Was some kind of trap going to spring? Had they missed something? Shaggy's senses went on high alert as Levy summoned her staff. The purple glow of her staff enhanced the low-light already in the bar.

Maya took a full minute to gather herself before she could talk again. She wiped tears from her eyes before looking at them both again.

"Do you really think the military and the HLO would have this much protection for just books?"

Shaggy calmed down as he realized there was no trap. Levy kept her staff out though as she answered Maya's question.

"Three HLO teams and a military escort that only saw you part of the way? Yeah. What else could they be moving?"

Maya shrugged. "I didn't get a good look at it. But the military guys loaded up something else with the books."

"Then why the hell would they make such a big deal of this delivery then?" Shaggy asked. "This shit was on the news?"

"Because it's so mundane." Levy answered as Maya took another drink. "Who would suspect a book delivery to house something more insidious? Especially with the HLO putting it front and center everywhere."

"Hide the important shit up front." Maya nodded.

Shaggy rubbed his head in annoyance as their simple book robbery snowballed. One look at Levy, though, told him the job was still on. In fact, she looked even more excited about the job. He imagined the rest of their friends would have their own say in things. But for now, they really needed to meet up and plan.

He and Levy shared another look before glancing at Maya again. They still needed to decide what to do with her. They could kill her. But if her respawn location was close, she'd just make things harder for them. Abducting her was also an option, but came with its own set of problems.

"My respawn is just outside Abilene." Maya provided, placing her hands on the bar again. "So if you kill me, I'll just pop up again and tell the HLO about you."

"You think you can get through a Deathville that fast?" Shaggy asked.

"Maybe not. But do you want to risk it?"

"Not if there are other options." Levy provided.

Maya looked up at Levy, a half-smile on her face. "What do you mean?"

"Well, clearly, there's no love lost between you and the HLO. My husband tells me they are even going to issue you a reprimand once you return."

"Fuckers."

"So, how about you tell us what you want and we can see about making it happen?"

"What I want?" Maya asked.

"Yes, surely there's something a pair of Villains can do for you. I mean, we do have the benefit of a lack of red tape."

"One of the positives of being a Villain." Shaggy nodded.

Maya looked thoughtful and bit her lip as her hands clutched the bar. She was clearly at war with herself. The game had shuffled her into the HLO's way of doing things. Now they were giving her another option.

"What would I have to do?" Maya asked.

"Nothing you're uncomfortable with. You can be as involved as you want. Although, I'd recommend you not be on the book truck in the coming days."

"I see…"

"Boss, we got drones incoming."

"I hear cops too."

Shaggy scowled. "Copy."

He gave his wife a look he hoped she interpreted correctly. But Levy was still locking eyes with the thoughtful Maya. The gunslinger looked like a kid on Santa's lap who didn't know what they wanted. She waggled her head back and forth for a bit until she finally nodded to herself.

"I'll help you with the truck," she started.

"Great. Sounds good. We need to go," Shaggy tried to interrupt.

But Maya wasn't finished. "BUT! I want your help in figuring out what happened to that town."

Shaggy and Levy froze, questions clear in their eyes.

"The one the HLO ignored." Maya added.

"Didn't the military sweep the place?" Levy asked.

"Yes. They got rid of whoever was attacking. But they couldn't investigate fully. I wanted to turn around and find out what was going on. But that's not the HLO's mandate."

Maya spat the last word like a curse. Levy shrugged her shoulders and looked at Shaggy. He didn't know what to do either. His pack was telling him that the drones were getting closer and they needed to leave. Eventually he made a unilateral decision and said fuck it.

"Sure, but only after we get the books."

"And if they pursuit is too hot, we'll put it off until later." Levy added.

Maya down her last shot glass and nodded. "Fine. I can work with that. So what do I do?"

"Go back to the hotel and someone will reach out to you before tomorrow." Shaggy said, moving to Levy's side and looking for a backdoor.

"Wait! What do I tell the cops?" Maya asked as Shaggy and Levy moved toward the back of the room.

"Tell them we attacked you?" Levy shrugged.

The three of them stopped and looked around at the pristine bar. It did not look like a super fight went had taken place. Levy's staff lit up with power as Shaggy shifted his arms into claws. Maya drew one of her pistols as she kept one hand steady on the bar.

"Your going to need something better than rubber bullets to convince them you made two Super-Villains run." Shaggy snorted.

Maya chuckled as a brown mist gathered around her hand on the bar. The mist crawled up her arm and crossed over to her other one before wrapping around her revolver. She ejected the rubber bullets as the mist formed into tiny wooden spikes. Each spike floated into a chamber before Maya closed the revolver's latch and spun the cylinder.

"How about wooden stakes?"

Shaggy glanced at the bar, which now had a huge chunk taken out of it. Shrugging his shoulders, he said. "That's more of a vampire thing, but I imagine they'll hurt."

The three of them shared a look as the sounds of sirens grew louder in the distance. They only had so much time to wreck the bar and move on. As one, the three Players moved and became a tornado of destruction. The poor NPC bar owner would not be happy with their redecoration choices. But Shaggy figured the guy had digital insurance or something. Hell, maybe since Maya was involved, the HLO would have to pay for things.

The thought made Shaggy's smile grow as Maya sank tiny wooden spikes into his body. They did, indeed, hurt like hell.