//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: How it Came to Be // Story: Lunaverse X Shadowrun: First Run // by thatguyvex //------------------------------// Chapter 5: How it Came to Be Trixie rested her head back against the seat’s headrest as the van rumbled down the rough country road. Her mind churned with the evening’s events, her body still feeling the draining aftereffects of the adrenaline that had surged through it. That and the bullet wound. Couldn’t forget the bullet wound. It ached like the world’s worst bruise, despite the painkiller meds Carrot Top had shot Trixie up with. Still, for feeling like ten different kinds of drek Trixie couldn’t deny an odd bit of elation blossoming in her chest. She’d done it! Her first shadowrun! First, and probably last. Yes, a sweet payday awaited, and the experience had been novel to say the least, but Trixie fully intended to thank Lyra for the consideration of never contacting Trixie for this kind of thing ever again. Trixie was perfectly happy with her failing detective business, thank you very much, and the sun itself could kiss Trixie’s puckered tush if she ever felt the need to get shot at by cybered up minotaurs or crazy stallions flying heavily armed VTOLs for the rest of her life! Her good mood at still being among the living and soon to be paid was dampened somewhat by the fact that not all the team had gotten out unscathed. Specifically Ditzy Doo was still in bad shape. The gray pegasus was conscious, but fading in and out of it. Carrot Top had managed to convince Ditzy to lay down and was keping Ditzy as comfortable as possible, laid out on one of the fully reclined back seats of the van. Carrot Top had a bio-monitor running over Ditzy and was occasionally administering meds, but other than that it didn’t seem like there was much the rigger/med-tech could do for the hacker except keep an eye on her condition. Ditzy insisted she’d be fine, but had certainly gone from her peppy, cheerful norm to barely saying a word as she rested. If that alone wasn’t enough to pop Trixie’s proverbial balloon of accomplishment she wasn’t too thrilled listening to the rest of the team bicker. “I can’t believe you! I just frackin’ can’t believe you!” Raindrops was looking two seconds shy of outright throwing herself at Lyra, the chrome legged mare sitting cross legged as she checked and cleaned her machine gun and glared vibro-daggers at the mint colored unicorn who had taken over driving the van while Carrot Top was busy monitoring Ditzy. “Look, I’m sorry, to everypony,” said Lrya past clenched teeth, “But I had to do this. I admit straight out I should’ve come clean that I was going after a friend, but ultimately it wouldn’t have changed the job!” “It might’ve caused some of us to back out, if we knew our leader’s head wasn’t on straight because the run was personal and not strictly biz!” shot back Raindrops, but on the very heel of her words Cheerilee piped in. “Rain, think about it. Even if Lyra had told us everything up front do you really think the rest of us would’ve voted to back out? C’mon, you know for a fact that one way or another we would have done this run. Getting a friend out of the kind of situation we found this mare in,” Cheerilee gestured at Octavia, “It’s the kind of thing any of us would be in for, don’t even pretend otherwise.” Raindrops blew out a giant sigh, grimacing, “Yeah, well, doesn’t change that Lyra should’ve told us up front. No offense, lady, but if I’m gonna risk my tail for somepony, I’d like to know about it before the bullets start flying!” Octavia took everything in stride, her calm violet eyes actually somewhat sympathetic though still holding no small amount of confusion in their depths, “I understand. At least the way you feel about having put your life at risk in such a manner. I know better than most how impulsive Lyra can be when it comes to those she feels loyal towards. I am still… unsure about what this is all about. You claimed, miss, that there is a spell on me?” Trixie started as Octavia addressed her, and looked over at the gray earth pony mare with a slight shrug, “There is, but moon and stars fall if I can guess what it’s doing to you. Mind affecting, probably. It’s not in any pattern I’m familiar with, but just looking at it I can tell you a couple of things. One; it’s a limited duration. Somepony, or someone, was needing to refresh that spell every… I don’t know, week or two, I’d guess? Two; it’s not unicorn magic, but Awakened magic. I wouldn’t have spotted it if I was wasn’t Awakened too. Finally; the complexity of the spell is such that I don’t think it was any armature, or even professional that put it on you, but a real master of the Art. Somepony wanted that spell to stay on you bad enough they hired top quality spellwork to keep it there.” Octavia took a moment to digest this news, her face remaining in that impressive state of passive calm that Trixie had to wonder if the mare took some kind of meds to keep so mellow. Or maybe that was the spell on Octavia doing its thing? Trixie didn’t know, and honestly it wasn’t any of her concern. Her part in this whole affair was done. Soon as she got her bits, she was gone, back to her apartment/office. She might even bother paying her rent before going out to celebrate with a night of partying and drinking. “Okay, so, question time!” said Cheerilee in a cheerful voice that somehow also managed to held a intense note of seriousness in it, “Lyra, now that we know you did this job to get your friend out from under Aurora Heavy Industries’ control, what’s the plan now? Normally when we pull an extraction the next step would be to take our ‘target’,” a gesture at Octavia, “ to the rendezvous with the Johnson , or whoever the Johnson’s pick up team is, and hoof the target over, then get paid. But if this mare’s your friend, and you busted her out to save her, I’m wondering exactly who we’re hoofing her over to? Or if we even are?” “Hoofing me over?” Octavia asked, also sounding rather concerned. “Got to admit I was getting curious on that count too,” said Carrot Top, though her tone was somewhat distracted. Trixie could guess the mare might still be running several drones, including that ludicrous Rabbit Buster. She hadn’t seen what the final result of the fight between the well equipped four-wheeled drone and the Flim and Flam brother’s VTOL had been and Carrot Top hadn’t spoken up about it. Trixie just hoped Carrot Top was smart enough not to leave any kind of trail those two nut jobs could follow. Trixie didn’t want to succeed at the job only to get blown up on the ride back. “We’re still meeting up with our employer,” said Lyra, expressing tightening as she took the van off the country road and onto a smoother highway that led away from the Everfree Wilderness and back towards the Canterlot Metroplex, “That’s the other thing I didn’t tell you girls. There was no Johnson for this job. The employer came to me directly with information about Octavia’s location and condition, and offered to help her if I could extract her from that facility.” “Why? What’s this ‘employers’ investment in your friend?” asked Raindrops with a suspicious narrowing of her eyes, wings flexing. “She wants to know what Octavia was working on for A.H.I,” said Lyra, “In exchange for that, she’ll help Octavia with the spell that’s on her, and pay us for the job as agreed.” Octavia frowned, “I’m to betray my employers to your employer?” Lyra grit her teeth, hooves gripping the wheel of the van tighter, “Octy, A.H.I is not your employer, they’re your captors! Former captors. Don’t you get it!? They foalnapped you all those years ago! You and Bon Bon! They put a spell on you to make you work for them on some top secret project. Now you’re free, except for that sun cursed spell they’ve put on you, but we’re going to get that taken care of. We’ll get it take care of, and my employer, once you help her figure out what A.H.I is up to, will also help us track down Bon Bon!” Octavia’s face went stony for a moment, then creases appeared on her brow as her frown deepened, and a pained look as if she were wresting with something, her head shaking, “I… I… Lyra… I don’t know. What? My head is fuzzy…ugh.” She put a hoof to her head, shaking it, and Lyra face turned taunt with fear, “Trixie?” Trixie blinked, “Me? What do you want me to do?” “Help her!” Trixie looked at Octavia, who looked as if she were battling a headache of Corona sized proportions, and blew out an aggravated sigh, “How? I don’t have any magic than can deal with this. Whatever’s going on in her head, she’s going to have to fight it herself, because all I could do is maybe put her to sleep with a spell so she could stay unconscious until we get her to whoever’s going to actually help her.” Lyra thought abut it a moment, then nodded, “Do it. Put her to sleep.” “L-Lyra?” Octavia said, voice confused, “Where am I? Where’s the lab? Why am I here? I…I have to get back to the lab. I have to keep studying the Stone…” Octavia trailed off, eyes fluttering closed, and she slumped back in her seat, breathing softly. Trixie’s horn glowed as she muttered few words of power, drawing forth the mana to layer the sleep spell on Octavia. She breathed a sigh of relief as the spell took full effect and Lyra gave her a nod. “Thank you.” “Don’t mention it. Seriously, don’t. I’d prefer it if, once this is all done, you guys just sort of forget you know me.” “Awww, but you’re actually pretty good at this kind of gig,” said Cheerilee with a smile, “The team’s been lacking a dedicated mage, and where else can you got out for a pleasant forest hike, meet new ponies, get shot at by them, foalnap a bespelled mare, and get paid a hefty sum of bits for it, all in one day?” “Nowhere else, which is kind of why I’d like to never do it again,” Trixie said, smiling slightly despite herself, “No offense to anypony present, but this is not the line of work for me.” “Fair’s fair,” said Carrot Top, “It’s not exactly the line of work I would’ve chosen first either, so no hard feelings. For what it’s worth it’s been a pleasure working with you Miss Trixie.” “Yeah, I guess,” said Raindrops, gruffly looking away, and was that a faint blush on the pegasus face!? “You did alright. Held up your end of things. Still, probably smart getting out while the getting’s good, if you don’t got the edge for the biz.” Trixie felt a stab of irrational indignation at that, as if Raindrops was somehow challenging Trixie to prove her wrong. And it was exceedingly effective. No ‘edge’f or the biz, huh!? Trixie could stick around for awhile, show Raindrops just how much edge Trixie had! She was made of edge, aweosmeness, greatness, several other kinds of ‘ness’, and her mane was prettier than Raindrops’ shaggy mess of… kind of nice teal hair. Bah! What did she know!? “So, back on topic,” said Cheerilee, “Are you going to tell us who this ‘employer’ is? I can only assume that this is going to lead into another job to track down your other marefriend?” “Not marefriend…” said Lyra, “Fiancé. Bon Bon was… is, my fiancé. And yes, I’m not stopping until I find her. I’ve spent too long hunting cold trails. The only reason I got into the biz was to find her and Octavia. Now that I’m this close, I’m not stopping. Not even if Corona herself broke out of the sun to stand in my way!” “Great, great, but who are we working for?” asked Raindrops, pointedly not looking at Trixie as Trixie fumed, still glaring at the pegasus. Lyra turned the van up a spiraling ramp and merged the van onto the busy freeway that led straight into the lower tiers of Canterlot’s Metroplex. Whether by intent or coincidence, the massive, luminous spiral towers of Moonrise Arcane Sciences and Technologies loomed ahead in the window as Lyra answered the question. “CEO of M.A.S.T, former Princess of Equestria; Luna Equestris.” ---------- Change. Luna Equestris was not a stranger to change. However, at times, she was amazed at how quickly things could change. For a mare who had seen the passing of so many millennia that even she had lost count of the exact number of them, Luna all too often forgot the speed at which the world could alter. Nothing was forever, not even her, and certainly not the stability of the world. Had it really only been a few short decades since the Awakening? Sixty years was it? Luna shook her head as she gazed out at the vast, glittering cityscape of the Canterlot Metroplex, is glowing glass towers like a field of shining wheat in the dimming sunlight. Her horn only faintly glowed as she finished lowering the sun, the eternal prison of her sister, and whispered “Good night Celestia,” with a sad, solemn shake of her head. The moon arose to her direction, a steady slow ascent over the east horizon, and she watched as the vast, impossible city outside her tower’s window came alive with a vibrant sea of lights, so varied in color and shape that Luna felt she was looking upon a rainbow speckled diamond. Ponies were truly incredible. In such a short time since the birth of new magic into the world, despite all the terrible troubles that had come with it, her little ponies had grown so much. So much that they no longer truly needed their Princess to watch over them. The world had changed, rapidly, to no longer require the reign of a sovereign, or a Night Court that was too slow in its bureaucratic mire to sever the needs of a increasingly industrial and technologically advanced world. Luna still remembered keenly the swift tide of change, stemming from that first night that undeniable proof of a new surge of magic in the world had come forth. She’d felt it, of course. It had happened when she’d been raising the moon much like this very night. It had been as if a wave had rolled across the very breadth of the land, a surge of unparalleled magical power, yet many ponies had not felt a thing that night, only those attuned to the new mana, the new energies, being unleashed all across the world. Luna had Awakened that night, along with over ten percent of the world’s entire population, regardless of species. Awakening had been a unique experience, even for the immortal alicorn. She’d felt the wave of magic pass over her and it was if a gateway had been thrown open inside her mind, a rush of power, but more than that, a sense of connection to something unbelievably vast and vibrant. The Astral Plane, a world of nearly limitless magic, had overlaid the mortal realm. The Astral Plane had always existed. Luna had known of it, long ago, when she and her sister Celestia were young and learning the ways of alicorn magic. The Astral Plane had been separate from the mortal realm, however, and one had to use specific magic to pierce the veil between the two. The Awakening, however, removed that veil, and the Astral Plane merged with the mortal realm, making its power and magic known and accessible to many across the world who had the gift to touch it. That event had started a cascade of changes, changes whose effects were still being felt in Equestria and in all the many lands beyond. The mere fact that anypony, earth pony, pegasus, or unicorn could potentially access an entire new realm of magic had fundamentally altered the social structures of Equestrian society. Both wonder and fear had swept her little ponies in equal measure, and for that first decade she recalled having to make the Night Court work double time to keep the peace and figure out just how to… approach dealing with new and possibly dangerous magic. After all Awakened magic was such a large unknown back then. Fear was understandable. Unicorns, once the masters of such overt power, now feared losing their prestige when any earth pony might possess might to rival their unicorn spells. And how many earth ponies feared their children might Awaken to mysterious new powers, summoning spirits from a hitherto unknown realm, or accidentally throw fireballs from their hooves? The strain of setting up methods to monitor and regulate such new magic put no small amount of strain on the Night Court, but that was just the start of the troubles. The Wildernesses soon came as well. The Everfree, the Briarthorn, and the Badlands, all dangerous and wild places before the Awakening, where weather ran free and monsters of all manner dwelled, had literally exploded outward in growth with the coming of the Awakening. New Wildernesses also sprung up, often in populated area. Wild, unnameable forests that grew unnaturally fast, and contained within them all manner of dangers. Free roaming spirits of the Astral Plane, bizarre otherworldly monsters unlike any seen before, uncontrollable and dangerous weather, all of these were part of the Wildernesses, and the crisis brought on by them only taxed the Night Court further as its laboriously slow methods struggled to keep up with a rapidly altering situation. Though the ponies did finally work to slow the spread of the Wildernesses, the crisis was only stopped when help arrived from the most unexpected of sources. The buffalo, long frosty neighbors to the ponies of Equestria, had also been affected by the Awakening. They had many in their ranks who had Awakened to the powers of the Astral Plane, but where most of the Awakened Equestrians were of a type that seemed to channel Astral mana in a manner not unlike the unicorns with their spells, the buffalo brought to light a new ‘tradition’; that of Shamanism. The Shamans of the buffalo claimed to have kinship with the spirits of the Astral Plane or ‘Mother Gaia’, and each seemed to speak to a Totem spirit that guided their powers. The buffalo Shamans demonstrated uncanny ability to control the Wildernesses and stop their spread. The buffalo were willing to aid the ponies of Equestria in their time of need, but the buffalo also asked a large price for their aid. The buffalo wanted exclusive rights to settle in any land the Wilderness had already claimed, which at that point including nearly a third of Equestria itself! Why the buffalo wanted so much land, when before they had never shown interest in such expansion, was a question with a strange answer. Luna, when she negotiated with the chieftains of the buffalo tribes herself, got a vague and ominous response. She’d been told that the buffalo’s greatest Shaman, Ghost Dancer, had been granted a vision by Mother Gaia that the world would face a terrible tragedy if the buffalo remained isolated and apart from the rest of the world. To save the world from this future crisis Ghost Dancer claimed the buffalo had to rise, to grow, to expand, so that when the ‘Great Plague of Insects’ came that the buffalo tribes could stand strong to fight it. Luna had not known what to make of the story, but Ghost Dancer, she remembered him well. His eyes had been those of one who had utter conviction in his beliefs. For whatever reason he firmly believed that the world would face true danger in the future, and only by ensuring his race grew and thrived would they be strong enough to protect the world. Luna had agreed to the buffalo’s demands. Unfortunately her Night Court did not. Luna, for all her power, did not exercise complete control of her Night Court. In theory she held a certain amount of executive authority, and could even overrule just about any decision the nobility made. She merely feared exercising that power, for it was far too close to the tyranny that had befallen her sister and twisted Celestia into the wrathful mare of the sun, Corona. Luna had so feared becoming a tyrant herself she had not used her authority to overrule the Night Court when it refused the buffalo’s offer. Only it was not truly an offer. Merely a gesture of good will before the buffalo did what they were going to do anyway; take the Wildernesses for their own. The Night Court did not react well to this, seeing it as an invasion of Equestria’s sovereignty. In short order Equestria found itself near the brink of war, and Luna had been unwilling to force her ponies to follow one path or the other. The first battle of the Wilderness War was fought a mere eighteen years after the Awakening, and ended in a heavy defeat of the Equestrian forces who were utterly unprepared to deal with the incredible forces the buffalo Shaman’s brought to bear, or the control the exhibited over the Wildernesses itself. Luna, to protect her ponies, became personally involved in the fighting over the course of the next year, and found that even the might of an alicorn could only aid so much against the seemingly abundant powers of the Shamans and their connection to the wild forests they’d claimed. It was only good luck that the Griffin Kingdoms were too torn by their own internal conflicts to take advantage of Equestria’s distraction, and after the first year of frustrating battle the Equestrians who had not been behind the Night Courts decision to go to war were forming rebellious factions to protest the war. At the same time a strange change was coming over the common ponies, one that crept up on Luna so quickly she still marveled at how fast it had all happened. It has started with the Apple Trust, a conglomerate of orchard owning farmers all related by blood ties. When one of the Apple Trust’s largest orchards fell victim to the expanding Wildernesses, the Trust organized its own militia to defend its property, since the Equestrian regular army was stretched too thin elsewhere. This militia, consisting of regular farmers and other common folk was armed and trained by the Apple Trust, which used its extensive monetary sources to purchase or build smithies to produce all the weapons and armor needed to equip their “security force”. The Apple Trust Security Force proved remarkably successful in defending orchards, primarily because the Trust employed and trained the still very new Awakened “mages” to join their ranks, and on top of that was willing to utilize new types of weapons developed base off of Equestria’s still little used cannons. These ‘firearms’ were an effective new development, and the Apple Trust paid researches and inventors from across the land to improve upon the weapon’s designs. At the same time that this was happening many other groups started to spring up to invest in researching new and improved methods of doing things. In the Night Court there was a faction called the technocrats who pushed forth the concept of industry well before the Awakening, and now this small faction grew vastly larger, its nobles making a contest of choosing the brightest and most ambitious groups among the commoners to fund and support in the development of new technologies. Soon a technological boom occurred across Equestria, as more and more conglomerates formed with noble backing to build newer and better machines. Luna recalled the first time she’d seen an electric coil, or a vacuum tube. Steam powered engines and electrical bulbs and telegraphs. And even these incredible marvels gave way to even newer and better machines. As the war ground on, so did Equestrian industry, as if all of ponykind was possessed by a unrelenting need to craft and build to meet the threat of the Wildernesses. In a few short decades steam power gave way to electricity and refined gasoline. Vacuum tubes gave way to circuitry, and the unimaginable invention of the computer. The ponies just wouldn't stop. Luna couldn't have stopped them if she had wanted to, and she’d been too flabbergasted, to amazed at the rapid changes, to even try. To the immortal alicorn it was if the world metamorphosed right before her eyes. Small towns grew into large towns, with paved streets and gas powered autowagons. Small offices grew into vast skyscrapers, and towns expanded and flourished into field-like cities. An entire new generation of ponies boomed into being, families growing to incredible size, and a population explosions unlike anything Luna had ever seen occurring to match the rate at which corporations could produce food and jobs. Yes the corporations… the final nail in the coffin of the increasingly defunct Night Court. The Apple Trust had started it all with their security forces, their militia. At the time the Night Court had allowed it simply out of the necessary fact that the civilians needed a way to protect themselves while the military was stretched to the breaking point fighting the buffalo. What the Night Court had not grasped was that in allowing the Apple Trust to legitimize the formation of its own militia and call it an armed “security force” they had opened to the doors to commoner based conglomerates to start possessing power akin to independent nations. Oh, it didn't happen immediately, Luna remembered. The Apple Trust was the first, but not the last. Ponies saw the Apple Trust’s example and soon many such groups grew like mushrooms across Equestria, some focused on food production, others weapons, others still paving new roads or building new factories. Regardless of the focus, these conglomerates formed their own militias and started making their own rules to regulate how they operated. Before long each group was like a small nation, controlling towns or multiple towns within a province in ways the local nobility did not. By the time that the Night Court nobles noticed control of their provinces loosening from their grip it was too little too late. The strain of the war, the constant protests against the armed conflict, and the fact that so much of Equestria’s newly growing infrastructure was thanks to the work of this commoner conglomerates had made it so the nobles of the Night Court had no foundation to rule upon. They had lost the people. The ponies. The citizens of Equestria. And there was no getting them back. They belonged now to the Apple Trust, the Stillmane Group, the Trottingham Industrial Base, the North Sea Trade Company… the ponies of Equestria had chosen new masters and as one the conglomerates demanded ratification from the Night Court. And with so much of Equestria’s ability to function now resting on these conglomerates the Night Court did the only thing it could do; it acknowledged them. They were no longer commoner conglomerates but legitimized ‘corporations’ with a defined set of rights, including the right to maintain standing armies and set laws within their own territories. Each corporation became like its own country, able to run its affairs independently of Equestria’s government. What little power the Night Court had left was laced almost solely into its stained military, and it was the corporations that ultimately stepped in and negotiated an end to the war, strong arming the Night Court into pulling the regular army out of the fighting. Much to the entire nations relief a treaty was signed with the buffalo, giving them the right to settle permanently into the Wildernesses, as long as the Wildernesses ceased to expand into Equestrian territory. And so time marched on, and change came even swifter. With no war draining resources the corporations wasted no time in building Equestria up once more as a shining beacon to the world. Technology’ advance continued, the simple computers developing into mindbogglingly fast machines that became connected to each other over a vast information network that came to be known as the Matrix. Medical technology flew to new heights and the ability to infuse machine into flesh was discovered. New social structures emerged, the Corporations (with a capital C now) ruled so much territory and the Night Court ceased to have any power in deciding day to day affairs that, one day, Princess Luna simply… disbanded it. It wasn’t an official disbanding, but rather a full nullifying of the Night Court’s significance. She did this by renouncing her title as Princess and formally creating her own Corporation, Moonrise Arcane Sciences and Technologies, which she declared would serve as her way of contributing to the betterment of her little ponies; who she fully and openly admitted had grown up and where hardly her little ponies anymore. After that Night Court member after Night Court member renounced their former titles and also sought new ventures in the growing business world of Equestria. For a time, things were good. Though Equestria no longer had a central government it was incredibly how well ponies could interact and run themselves. Each Corporation focused on its own interests, but also tended to assist other Corporations in managing areas outside their area of expertise. Soon a sort of unofficial council was formed among the largest Corporations that decided on general actions for the betterment of Equestria, with “CEO” Luna as a regular part of the council’s activities. In that way, at least, the more things changed the more they stayed the same. Barons and Dukes were replaced with CEOs and Sub-CEOs. Voting in noble committees was replaced with board room meetings. And, as always with those in power, favor was curried and traded and actions taken behind the scenes guided the lives of a nation as much as the old Night Court ever did. And as the Corporation’s power grew, so too did the long shadows they cast. Society in Equestria had never been perfect, but Luna saw in the last two or three decades a unpleasant decline that worried her to her very core, like a cancerous sore. While the Corporations had for a time existed to bring a grand and prosperous life to the everyday pony, there were now… issues, and a clearly growing divide between those with money and power, and those without. The methods Corporations used to maintain its employees became questionable, with long running contracts filled with holes a pony could get lost in, stuck as little more than a “wage-slave” to their Corporate owners. Upward mobility became infrequent, and a growing line of poverty among ponies who could not get normal jobs or education started to create dangerous slums out of entire city blocks. Crime started to rise, gangs and organized groups of criminals claiming territory in the ever more deadly low-town slums; the worst among them earning the title “Barrens”. Drugs, gambling, street violence, in some places these became common place, and the Corporations seemed to let it happen, perhaps even feed on it. Worse, the Corporations had ceased to be cooperative with each other and instead compete viciously among themselves. This fighting didn't extend to open armed warfare, for the Corporations didn't want to destroy themselves… yet. Instead the conflicts between Corporations fell to hired, deniable assets. Rare individuals who fell between the cracks of society, yet had skills for sale to get dangerous jobs done discretely. Individuals who ran the shadows for the Corporations, or anyone else who could pay them. The shadowrunners. And as much as Luna desperately sought a way to change things, to somehow stop the spiral of madness that seemed to be consuming her world, she herself was forced to resort to the same methods the Corporations used. She had need to hire shadowrunners. Luna turned from the window and strode across her office to the massive shell shaped mahogany desk set against a wall covered from floor to ceiling in flat screen monitors. She floated around the face of the antique clock to look at the time. The team she’d sent on a critical task would have by this point either succeeded and be en route to the agreed upon rendezvous point, or were likely dead. No, she doubted they had failed. Not Lyra Heartstrings’ team. Luna found herself smiling. Luna had taken a personal interest in the career of Lyra Heartstrings not long after the disappearance of two ponies who’d been close to the unicorn. Luna’s reasons were not, she was somewhat ashamed to admit, entirely altruistic. She herself had been interested in the skills of one of Lyra’s associates, a one Octavia Philharmonica. Not only was the mare a musician of remarkable talent, Octavia possessed skills and qualities outside the arena of music that Luna suspected could be of great value to restoring Equestria to a realm of peace and harmony once again. Octavia’s abduction had been a setback, and a tragic event even if it hadn’t swept up another innocent, Bon Bon. Luna’s own investigations into that incident had led her to suspect that Bon Bon had merely been a bystander, and that the abductors had only been after Octavia. It had taken some time to track Octavia to the A.H.I facility in the Everfree Wilderness. A.H.I was one of the few Corporations that had a contract with the buffalo to build in their territory, but for all Luna’s vast resources she had yet to divine exactly who or what was behind Aurora Heavy Industries. On paper the Corporation was owned by a unremarkable family of factory owners who’d expanded their business slowly to involve some of the larger manufacturing bases of vehicles, heavy construction machinery, and military grade weapons. Unofficially the Corporation had a highly active and unusually focused archeological subsidy and several research facilities that specialized in studying pre-Awakening artifacts. It just so happened that Luna’s own M.A.S.T also had a division wholly dedicated to pre-Awakening artifacts and research. This coincidence led to a competition between A.H.I and M.A.S.T that thus far had not turned into a literal shadow war, but the abduction of Octavia, a pony Luna had been scouting to join M.A.S.T, had been the first shot fired in Luna’s opinion, and once she’d confirmed Octavia was in A.H.I’s control she hadn’t hesitated to point Lyra and her team in the right direction. Now not only did Luna gain the benefit of having helped some of her little ponies reunite with one another, she could potentially learn from Octavia just what A.H.I was up to in abducting the mare in the first place. Given some of the other problems she’d been having with A.H.I she had her own theories as to what might have been happening, but she’d confirm it all soon enough. It was time to go meet the shadowrunners. Assuming nothing had gone wrong. Luna frowned, then sighed at her own thinking, and with a wave of her hoof brought to life a paper thin glass screen. Immediately the image of white stallion with a two toned blue mane appeared on the screen, looking calm and professional if a tad concerned. “Yes madame President? What can I do for you?” asked Shining Armor, chief of M.A.S.T’s security forces, the Moon Knights. “Chief Armor, I’d like you to prepare a level 5 response force to depart within the hour.” To Shining Armor’s credit he didn’t even question why the CEO was calling for the kind of security response normally reserved for armed invasion of corporate headquarters, or what she wanted to do with it. He merely smartly saluted with a firm, “Yes madam President!” The screen clicked off and Luna knew that Shining Armor would have his forces ready in less than twenty minutes, instead of the hour time limit she’d given him. The boy was nothing if not incredibly efficient. A credit to his father, one of Luna’s top ranked Sub-CEO’s. Shining’s sister was also showing promise, despite only being recently signed onto one of M.A.S.T’s field research teams. With a proper amount of backup getting ready to arrive at her call, Luna turned from her desk and wove a dense illusion of magic around herself, her form shifting and shrinking before she cast a teleport spell that flicked her out of her office in an eye blink. ---------- Raindrops couldn’t keep herself from twitching, one of her hind hooves tapping rapidly. It was something she couldn’t really help, it was either twitch, or start screaming and punching, to give in to the urge inside her to violently tear into the source of her anger. Lyra. Why did Raindrops ever think she could trust another pony? She’d finally, finally gotten to the point where she thought she’d found ponies she could rely on, that she could put her trust in… and Lyra just had to glitch it up by lying to and endangering the team! What was worse, everypony else seemed pretty fine with it! Why!? Just because Lyra had an excuse? That she was trying to save her friends? Weren't the team her friends too? What would Lyra had done if Ditzy had died? Or any of the rest of them? Raindrops held it all in, knowing that to explode at Lyra anymore would be pointless. At least the job was nearly done. But Raindrops was so on edge she felt like she’d jacked on her wired reflexes and adrenal pumps. Her instincts were telling her that this was far from over. Whatever A.H.I had this Octavia mare working on it was clearly important, to warrant the kind of mojo Trixie said had been slapped on Octavia. A.H.I would be sending forces after them. On top of that, it wasn’t as if Lyra planned to make the drop, get the payment, and get out. No, Lyra sounded like she planned on going after her other friend, with the help of Luna fragin’ Equestris!. It was insanity! Lyra had cut a deal with an alicorn and had dragged the team into something way bigger than them. And the team was just going along with it! Why wasn’t anypony else angry? Was Raindrops the only one who understood how dangerous this all was? She didn’t want to see any of the team get hurt. Maybe it was time to break away? After she got her share maybe she ought to just go. She could always find another team. One that wasn’t filled with crazy ponies. …Frag it! Frag it all! Why did Lyra have to go and mess around with a perfectly good dynamic they had going? “Hey, you okay?” Raindrops blinked, glancing up as she saw Carrot Top looking at her with concern in the rigger’s green eyes. Raindrops nodded, fast and curt, “Yeah. Just want this job done. Ditzy doing good?” “I’m feeling swell,” said Ditzy herself, somewhat dazedly as she weakly waved a hoof, “Just a smidge lightheaded!” “That’s mostly the drugs, Ditzy,” said Carrot Top. Ditzy grinned, a little lopsided, patting Carrot Top on the head, or at least trying to, as she mostly just caught air, “You’re the best medical pony. You’re mane looks like a basket of orange muffins.” “Is she high?” asked Trixie incredulously. “A little,” said Carrot Top with a shy smile, “You weren’t much different when I juiced you up while treating the bullet wound. How is that by the way?” “Less horrible agony and now more just painfully annoying,” said Trixie with a light chuckle and Raindrops snorted, causing the azure mare to glare at Raindrops, “What?” “Nothing…” “Horsedrek, what’s your problem?” Trixie persisted, crossing her forelegs across her barrel, “Does anything actually get you to smile, or relax, or have an emotion that isn’t pointless anger?” “It’s not pointless!” Raindrops snapped, “It’s perfectly reasonable anger! My team leader lied to me about the job we were doing, one of my only friends nearly died from having her brain fried, and I’ve got to share a van with a stuck-up, full of herself mage that thinks it’s funny that she got shot and could’ve bleed to death if Carrot Top didn’t invest in a fragging medical drone!” “If I had died, would you even have cared?” shot back Trixie. Raindrops just growled and looked away, not saying anything further. Looking out the front window she noticed that they’d circled around the high-end districts of the Metroplex and were entering the open, dark mouth of one of the many underground tunnels that wove through the Canterhorn mountain. Soon the van was swallowed by a tube of concrete, metal, and dull orange magical lights. There was only light traffic in here, a few other autowagons rolling along in front of them. If Raindrops was remembering her layout of the Metroplex right, they were on highway 116, which led towards the industrial complex hugging the south side of Canterhorn. Lots of factories and warehouses, along with the stations for the Canterlot Metroplex’s large airship docking facilities. Numerous Corporations owned slices of this area, which made it relatively safe from gang activity and other crime, but made it dangerous without the right passes to get by the various corporate checkpoints. “We good to move through here?” Raindrops asked. “Luna provided all the passes needed to my comlink,” said Lyra “We can glide through here easily enough. We’re going to one of the lower tier airship docks on the east end. Dock 11.” The van wove its way among the pristine, if darkly lit, squat and square buildings that were lined up side by side like stacks of foal’s toy blocks. Everything was uniform, with concrete or chain-link fences and walls guarding each warehouse or factory building. Uniformed security ponies walked the sidewalks, or stood in watch booths at regular intervals. Somepony who had a taste and talent for landscaping had worked hard to try and make the area look less like a steel prison and more friendly, happy, and natural by planting trees and bushes along the sidewalks or on street islands. Raindrops shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She had bad memories of places like this. Her mother and father had worked in such a district of Cloudsdale… just before Snails had been born. She twitched, feeling the need to break something. The twitch threatened to become a tremor, but she shoved it down. Buried it. Thinking about Snails was a bad idea. Not only the memories, but it made her feel like a hypocrite for being angry at Lyra. After all hadn’t they both become shadowrunners for the same reason? “Look lively girls,” said Cheerilee, “We’ve got tails.” “Uh, duh?” said Trixie, “We’re ponies.” Cheerilee looked at Trixie, smiled, and reached over to pat the unicorn on the head, “You’re adorable. I mean we’re being followed.” “How long?” asked Lyra, glancing at the rearview mirror. “Since we emerged from the tunnel into the industrial area. They’re not on the ground, Lyra, look up,” said Cheerilee. Raindrops had already moved towards the back of the van, readying her machine gun, and looked out the back window. Up in the sky she saw them, a group of nine pegasi flying in a tight formation in groups of three. They were wearing what looked like skin tight black fatigues, the kind of nondescript body suits that’d remove any possible identifying markings. Raindrops caught the tell-tale sight of side mounted weapons. These could be corp security for one of the locals that’d taken an interest in their van, or it could be an A.H.I team that’d managed to track them from the Everfree. Either way, it was clear the pegasi were trailing the van, about fifty meters back and twice that high. “What’s our move?” she asked, “We can’t rumble in a corp controlled zone without getting swarmed by security, and I doubt Luna’s going to appreciate us bringing guests along.” “How’d they find us anyway?” asked Carrot Top, a deep frown shadowing her face, “I know I’m not as good as Ditzy, but I was keeping an eye on our datatrail. We’re clean on the digital end.” “Sure as drek wasn’t anypony picking us up while we were passing the higher end of the ‘plex,” said Cheerilee, “These guys just showed up. However they tracked us they knew where to go to get on us.” “They might be using magic,” said Trixie, and at the looks she got she quickly held up her hooves, “If they are, its and spell I don’t know or can’t detect. I’m just saying it’s possible. I’m good, but there’s a lot of fields in magic where I’m a little short on expertise. For all I know there’s some kind of tracking spell layered on Octavia that’s hidden among all the other magic that’s on her.” “Either way, they’re here, and we need this dealt with before we get to Dock 11,” said Lyra, eyes scanning left and right as she took the van on a offshoot road between two smaller warehouses, “I’ll try to lose them, but if they’ve got some kind of tracking spell on us I need you to find it Trixie, and remove it.” “I’ll…” Trixie sighed, “I’ll try.” Raindrops watched as Trixie adjusted her seatbelt to be tighter, then closed her eyes and seemed to go into a meditative trance. It bothered Raindrops to watch it. It reminded her too much of Snails. Raindrops would never be able to fully trust the magic of the Astral Plane. Never. ---------- Trixie buckled herself tightly, and with a deep, calming breath began to slip herself into the Astral Plane. She wanted full freedom to check everypony in the van, not to mention she was curious to see if there were any mages among the pegasi following them. She shucked her body and her spirit flew freely, and for a moment she had to reorient herself and get her spirit back into the van, as her spirit had been left behind the second she’d jumped into the Astral Plane. Inside the van, sensing things through her Astral form, Trixie looked over the team. She was relieved to see that Ditzy’s aura was actually bright and strong despite her injury. Trixie marveled at the mare’s vitality. Both Ditzy and Carrot Top seemed clean of any foreign magic, and Trixie glanced over at Raindrops. Though she’d been expecting it Trixie was still shocked to see just how much of the mare’s aura was darkened and frayed from the cybernetic implants that had been put into her. Raindrop’s aura was like a tattered quilt, moth eaten with holes. Trixie wasn’t the best at using auras to read emotions, but with Raindrops the swirling, tight ball of red anger at her core was so obvious and glaring that Trixie just stared at it for a few seconds. How was that mare keeping herself under control? If that anger was anything to go by Trixie was shocked at how calm Raindrops was acting, relatively speaking. Most ponies with an active amount of anger that intense was already in the process of beating the drek out of somepony else. Raindrops just looked tense and irked most the time. Aside from that though Raindrops had nothing on her. Lyra and Cheerilee both seemed similarly clean, though that was no surprise in Lyra’s case. In all likelihood the adept would have felt any magic on her before Trixie would’ve spotted it. Again, though, none of this came as a surprise to Trixie. There had been a small chance that some sort of magical ward or trap that Trixie had missed in her sweep of the A.H.I facility had activated as the team left, or when they’d entered the lab perhaps, to tag them with a tracking spell, but Trixie suspected it was Octavia herself that was the one being tracked, not the team or their van. So once more Trixie found herself examining Octavia Philharmonica. The mare still slumbered from the spell Trixie had put on her, and Trixie saw the energy of that spell like a light coating of dust on top of the deep intricate series of interlacing lines of power that were the spells shrouding Octavia’s mind and heart. Trixie looked closer, examining the spellwork in detail. Most of it went entirely over her head, she hated to admit. She understood enough to know there was actually more than one spell and branch of magic at work, and that the layering of the spells were remarkably fine and subtle. Octavia would never know or guess she was bespelled, even as an Awakened herself. What little Trixie knew of tracking spells only told her that if there was one on Octavia, she couldn’t see it. Assuming, of course, it was Awakened magic being used to track her. Unicorn magic, or any of the other forms of pre-Awakening magic were possibilities she hadn’t considered or checked yet. First, though, let’s take a peek at our pursuers… Trixie thought, figuring she’d see if there were any Awakened among them, and then pop back into her body to check Octavia using her unicorn magic. Trixie poked her Astral head up through the roof of the van and scanned the sky for the pegasi. She spotted them. Then screamed. And screamed some more. Then she popped back into her Astral body as fast as she could and proceeding to try and leap out of her seat, failed because she was bucked in, and decided, screw it, she’d just sit there and scream a bit more. It was so much more satisfying to do with actual lungs. It took a few seconds for Carrot Top to shake Trixie to her senses, repeating, “Trixie! Trixie! Calm down! What is it!?” Lyra looked back as well, only a quick glance as she started to slow the van, but Trixie threw a hoof out, shouting, “Don’t slow down! Speed up! Moon’s sake, speed up! Get us out of here!” “Why? What did you see?” Lyra asked, as the others of the team, all looking a tad shaken, even Raindrops, watched Trixie and nervously started to prepare weapons. Trixie eyes focused from their wild staring for a second, and she composed herself with a small gulp of air, taking a shaking breath, “I… I don’t… Insects… they’re not ponies… they’re insects.”