• Published 3rd Mar 2015
  • 541 Views, 16 Comments

Shadowrun: Equestria - Savanah



Once upon a time in the land of Equestria, Access Page wished nothing more than to be promoted, but once her little brother is taken by the government she will find herself trust into a world of intrigue and shadows.

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Act 1.2: Do you accept my friendship?

Access and Naomi watched in bewilderment as the zebra ran away to call other ponies and took their cue to run away as fast as they could. At least they tried to run, but before they could get very far a horse with orange eyes stopped them.

“Hold there, partners!” He spoke with a broad smile on his face. “Were do you think y’all are going?”

“We…” Access begun, but stammered as more ponies with bright orange eyes approached from all sides.

“We are going to meet Celestia!” Naomi offered quickly.

“Oh, that’s great! But you are a bit lost, sugar cube, maybe we could go together.” The stallion replied with his best smile.

Access swallowed dry, her eyes darting around looking for any exit.

“We are hungry!” Naomi blurted. “We can’t go see Celestia with an empty stomach, right?”

Access looked at her completely confuse for a moment, but before she could say anything the two of them were quickly escorted to a small table and the ponies, zebras, and horses with orange eyes brought forth plate after plate of steaming food.

“What in Tartarus you just did?” Access asked in disbelieve, poking a big apple pie with her hoof.

“I’m not sure, it’s just that… In some way they are Applejack.” Naomi said as she eagerly stuffed her mouth with some apple fritters.

“Applejack? That bucking terrorist! Why would something take control over the arcology and start converting ponies into some ancient criminal?” Access asked.

Naomi sighed deeply. “Live long enough in Ponyville and you will begin to hear a few stories, stories from before the Fading, and in some of them Applejack is a hero.”

Access had heard stories about that of course, everyone in Neighpon knew about how some of the poor ponies of Equestria had their silly folk heroes. Most of them were little more than bandits, killers or even worse: Twilight Sparkle. Sometimes she would even listen in the news about the so called ‘Apples’ that followed in Applejack’s footsteps trying to overthrow the corporations and the government in order to install some stupid worker utopia.

“And it’s not only Applejack,” Naomi said after taking a bite of an apple pie. “I’m pretty sure I saw Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and even Fluttershy.”

Great, Access thought: a cultist, a traitor, a psycho war criminal, and a bio-terrorist. She was surrounded by ponies turned into some of the worst criminals in Equestria’s history! And only to make things worse, unless she did something she would end up becoming one herself.

She looked around, they had destroyed most of the infrastructure already, but maybe… Yes! Looking at the ceiling she found what she needed. She took a long breath and trying not to think in what would happen next she connected her deck to the data port in her neck.

In an instant, the world of flesh and bones was replaced by the consensual hallucination that was the matrix. She knew it was a bad idea, after what had happened to Password she had been afraid of entering in the matrix, but right now she had little choice.

Before her the world of electrons and pure data expanded almost indefinitely. She could see the ponies with white glowing eyes blinking around, changing the code of the arcology, but what really caught her gaze was the being of pure white light that now existed in the precise center of the arcology. She had seen godly avatars before, carefully sculpted to resemble the fallen goddesses, but that was something else entirely, something that not only resembled the goddesses, but also glowed with incalculably power and control, a being that called for adoration. She had known that behind every other avatar had been a pony just like her, but not this one. There was true power, something bigger than any pony ever could hope to achieve, bigger even than the corporations and governments. She felt attracted to it, but she forced herself to divert her gaze, to find the emergency controls of that section. She knew that every section of the arcology had local access to emergency controls. She found it and not even bothered to try the subtle way, simply unleashing a Hail Mary attack, throwing everything she could against it until the security finally gave away.

Alarms blared almost immediately, but she didn’t cared. She just needed to send a single command. Ponies with purple bright eyes immediately appeared around her, they were the intrusion countermeasures (Or as most deckers called them: IC) of the system already altered by the being that called itself Celestia Ex Machina. She logged off with a yank from the data cable, she winces in pain as she deal with the hard comeback. Reality and matrix danced in her mind for a few seconds, but soon the sprinklers activated all around and a mix of flame retardant and water spilled over the place. She had made sure they would be activated at full power.

“Run!” She screamed to Naomi and the two of them charged out of there amidst the temporary confusion, running down a flight of stairs and towards what had been an arcade, but now had been turned into some kind of open field with a long strip of concrete.

Access pointed them to small door to the side, she knew that it would lead to the maintenance tunnels and from there she could find her way to the security station, but before she could even get close to the door she was tackled.

Access and Naomi were thrown to the ground in an instant and in front of them three ponies with shinning blue eyes and long metallic wings stood. With horror she recognized their leader, it was or at least had been Aura, the pony that she had met during her flight from Neighpon.

“Are you fine?” The pony that had been Aura asked. “You shouldn’t try to cross the runaway without… Access Page!”

Aura hugged Access tightly, taking care not to hurt the unmodified mare with her considerable enhanced strength.

“Sweet Celestia! I was so worried about you! I have been looking everywhere for you since the attack!”

“Aura?” Access asked unbelievingly, “What happened to you?”

“Isn’t it amazing?” She turned around showing off her new wings and the propulsion pack on her back. “I can fly!”

Naomi gasped in awe. “How?”

Every year there were rumors of some big corporation getting pretty close to create functional artificial wings, but that was a fully functional design decades ahead of even the wildest rumors.

“Celestia will make us whole again,” Aura replied with joy.

-------------

Sound Wave felt the two new ammo boxes locking into place and his stomach being pumped full of protein paste. Things had become quiet for the last minutes and they were taking their time to reload and recharge. Meanwhile their minds were still working hard to calculate new tactical patterns.

The orders from Gale Warning were to hold their ground to the last.

The perimeters alarms blared and they marched forward to meet with the enemy, but this time they weren’t the ones with blue or orange eyes, instead this time they had shining purple eyes.

There was a single moment of doubt as they tried to calculate this new enemy’s capabilities, they didn’t had any apparent armor and the only thing they had that even approached a gun were their metallic horns. They each carried some kind of bag in their backs, at first the system assumed it should be to carry extra ammo or similar, but when they scanned it in infrared the packs glowed violently.

The system concluded that they should be suicide bombers and in unison, all the cyber-ponies opened fire against them. The objective was to eliminate them before they could get close enough to cause any damage.

Each bullet of the barrage was a small piece of lead travelling in extremely high velocity, each one packing enough punch to transverse a pony and probably the wall behind him and the pony behind that wall. So when the ponies with purple eyes walked unscathed through the first barrage the tactical system was sure that it must had been a mistake, no pony could survive it.

They kept shooting and the purple-eyes kept advancing, their horns shining as they walked through the relentless barrage completely unfazed. The bullets couldn’t touch them, even the most precise shoots wouldn’t draw blood.

They received the orders to use their heavy weapons. Barrages of armor piercing missiles and shards blasts are unleashed, but the unicorn-posers remain intact. Carefully watching the pattern of dispersion on the smoke and the explosions, the Tactical system finally understood what was happening, their bullets were still flying straight, but there was nothing there to be hit. Those ponies were somehow messing with their external sensors and creating perfect illusions.

The system tried to react, quickly running through their multitude of sensors to try locating the enemies, but it was already too late…

Sound Wave woke up. Not only a fragment of a memory, but everything he had ever been woke up free of the machines shackles. He fell to the ground for without the tactical system he had forgotten how to use his legs.

One of the unicorns, she had been a zebra before, touched his head with a caring hoof and he felt it, even though his head was sealed inside a combat helmet.

“Do you want to be free?” She asked with a melodious voice without moving her lips.

Sound Wave couldn’t understand, he looked at the unicorn and wanted to cry, but he doesn’t have eyes, they had been replaced by chrome a long time ago.

The unicorn didn’t spoke, instead it showed Sound Wave himself, not the monstrosity of chrome he was now, but the pony he had been. He had had soft blue coat.

“Do you want to be free?” She asked once again.

He had had a long mane, his mother had always complained about it.

“Do you accept my friendship?” She asked with a smile.

He wanted to say yes, he wanted more than anything to accept, to be a pony once more, but his mouth was locked in place by the heavy armor that encased his body.

The unicorn smiled happily and then suddenly he was enveloped in a purple glow.

“Yes!” he thought, “Please set me free! I want to be a pony again!”

Away from there, Gale Warning watched in disbelief as his entire squad of cyber ponies had been taken down by those strange purple-eyed ponies. He cursed this weird enemy and with a flick of a switch he activated the remote termination of all units.

Each of the cyber ponies exploded at once. Each a small detonation that unleashed a cloud of powerful acidic elements that would render the body a formless mass, it had been designed mostly to avoid their tech falling into wrongs hooves, but the unicorns-posers were so close to them now that they were caught in the blast and with a gleeful smile Gale Warning saw them being corroded. The compounds had been powerful enough to dissolve all the implants and augmentations inside the cyber pony, so it made easy work of skin, muscles and even bones.

“Activate a full sweep of the arcology, I need to see if there still are any security personnel still active.” Gale Warning ordered. “And give me full checkup on the clone!”

He looked nervously to the black box on the corner of his office, the box that had been following him for years now, a constant remind of what he had done and his only defense against an inexorable revenge.
------------

Access Page and Naomi were taken to what had been a small body modification shop, but now was occupied by ponies with glowing white eyes. For the last minutes, those ponies had carefully and methodically examined them.

“What do you think, dear?” One of them asked; he had been a zebra.

“Purple is definitely her color.” Other answered; she had been a big horse.

Access heard them debating amongst themselves as what appeared to be a metallic grey spider hung over her, it’s multitude of legs each finished in some kind of surgical tool.

Naomi was at her side, the young gryphon was struggling against the restraints, trying to use her claws to get free in some way, but they seemed to have learnt from their past mistakes and took special care with her. They had already decided that she was going to be an Element of Loyalty and in front of their eyes, they saw the machines building the pair of metallic wings with great velocity.

“You will love to be a unicorn!” The zebra said with a happy smile. “It’s simply wonderful!”

“We could do something for your mane while we are at it.” The horse commented as she operated some strange device.

The long machine’s limbs descended into her and one of them injected some kind of fluid while another one sprayed ascetic alcohol over her datajack and cleaned it carefully in preparation for the surgeries.

Smoke filled the room. There was loud sounds and even small explosion, but Access couldn’t see anything. Someone took her from the table and carried her away amidst the smoke and into what appeared to be a small room with a row of small seats in each side. Naomi was brought there with her. Still dulled by the strange medicine, she couldn’t understand what they were saying or what was happening, she just wanted to sleep.

Horus cursed his own luck once more as he threw Access Page in the back of the car. He helped Echo bring in the gryphon they had found just next to Access, any help would be appreciated.

“Let’s get out of here!” Horus screamed and in response Skande revved up the engine of the Kamekichi, the vehicle was the love child between a tank and an armored personal carrier, built with top of the line Hayraku’s tech and usually reserved only for the Red Samurais. Horus had been luck to find one resting in the security station they had raided.

The car accelerated trough the grass and what little remained of the original floor, curving tightly to the left and racing past old stores that were still being dismantled.

“We have company!” Echo screamed from her point on the vehicle’s tower. She didn’t have a clue about how to operate the heavy machine gun, but with Skande on the wheel and Horus taking care of the passengers there was no one else to take her place.

Six pegasi flying in tight formation approached the vehicle leaded by Aura.

Aura commanded her pegasi in a low passage, over the vehicle. With swift accuracy they landed on the vehicle, their hooves equipped with powerful magnets would keep them secure and as one they begun to use their retractable blades to hack their way through the back door or trough the turret, finding chinks in the armor.

“Take us to someplace with cover!” Horus screamed from his place on the back. He had finished fastening Naomi and Access’ belts as he heard the sound of the pegasi landing over them.

He took his new blades, those were Red Samurai’s combat knives made of some high tech alloy and finely balanced. Horus held them in both his fetlocks and took a knee. In a quick and silent pray for the ancestral spirits, he asked not for protection, but for the rage of a dragon. And for good measure he dosed himself with some of the drugs he had found in the Red Samurai’s stash, something called K10.

“Buck the system!” He screamed as he kicked the back doors open, one of the pegasus is throw out and hit the road with force, Horus still manages to see his body being mangled by the force of the impact, his wings retorted and fuel dripping from his pack.

Two others managed to avoid the same fate and jump inside the Kamekichi’s back. Horus receives both of them with vicious thrusts of his knifes, keeping them at bay and blocking their wing’s attacks. He had already seen what those things could do to an unarmored pony.

Echo Phony bashed the commands like crazy trying to make the tower work, she had managed to make it turn for a bit and scared one of the pegasus, but she had yet to find anything that made the tower shoot, she was pretty sure that there was at least one ammo box loaded in the thing.

Aura knew they wouldn’t be able to stop the Kamekichi normally, it was much stronger than a regular car and so armored that they would need some kind of heavy ordnance to damage it enough. She felt hate burning inside her, those terrorists had taken Access away from her once more. She wouldn’t allow them to get away!

“For Celestia!” She roared and dived towards the vehicle.

Horus was using the confined corners to his advantage, using short movements while the pegasi needed open space to use their wings effectively. He kept throwing one against the other, deflecting their blows and striking with each opportunity that he could. The pegasi were bleeding, but they hadn’t slowed down.

His drug accelerated brain kept pace with their enhanced brains, acting faster than any pony had the right to. He had a crucial advantage over these creatures, he had learnt how to fight since he was a foal while these beings were just now learning it, they were still unsure of their own bodies and capabilities. They were learning fast, but not fast enough.

With a quick feint and two powerful kicks he sends both of them flying away.

He takes a long breath, but before he could relax Aura lands on the back of the vehicle, her eyes filled with rage.

“You will not take her again!” She screams as she lunges towards the zebra, her blades directed to his neck. Horus barely managed to deflect the attack, her blades riling against his.

She reacted with cybernetic speed, striking hard and fast with both her blades, keeping her wings closed in the tight enclosure. Her fighting style was direct and fierce, using all the advantage of her extended reach and enhanced strength to overwhelm her opponent.

Horus style was a mix and match of several different styles he had learned here and there, mastered through uncountable skirmishes on the streets and refined trough pain. Too poor to afford the more expensive gear other runners used, Horus had learned how to fight enhanced adversaries with only his wits and every single cheap trick he could come across.

Skande drove them towards the subterranean garages, the low ceiling would be hard to maneuver for the pegasi and it had ample space for them to maneuver. Dozens of the pegasi were following them now and even some of those abominable cyber-wolves.

He took a sharp turn and rose a floor and smashed through a gazebo with a few ponies jumping away just in time to dodge. Passed straight through what had been the water park, but now was being diligently turned into a waterfall and a lake.

Echo Phony really wished she had some kind of manual, she definitely wasn’t a mare that liked to improvise. She always liked to study her targets, to know them intimately before she would make her move, but now there was only that bucking machine gun tower and a dozen pegasi trying to kill her. She took a long breathe and looked at the controls once again. They must be logical; whoever designed it had done it with functionality in mind.

She tried once again pressing buttons and messing around the levers and in response the machine gun jumped to life and with a mad grim she blasted away against the pegasi like a crazy mare.

Bad for her that the first ammo box clicked dry in about twenty seconds. She cursed the machine while desperately looking for something to reload the gun. At least the pegasi had taken some distance for now and while they didn’t realize she was without bullets they would keep their distance.

Horus felt his blood spilling through his wounds, the pain would come only later thanks to the drugs rushing through his system. Aura kept her unrelenting advance, her vicious blades exploiting any weakness in Horus’ defenses with mechanical precision. The zebra kept his ground, attacking with all the techniques he knew. Not allowing the computer programs time to adapt to any one fighting style.

He knew he was outclassed, it had been true even in their first combat back in the landing pad, but now she had received a tremendous upgrade. Only the drugs pumping through his system were keeping him on the combat, but how long could he endure the mare’s brutal assault?

He took a step back, a single instant to retake his breath before she attacked again. Knowing his death was fast approaching he made a silent and quick pray for Applejack and simply accepted it. When she came with both blades in a fierce thrust he knew he wasn’t fast enough to parry the attack, his body was simply too tired, too damaged for it.
And yet, he did it. He couldn’t understand how he managed to move so fast and with so much strength, it wasn't something he had the time to consider in the midst of a fight. He simply did it, responding with attacks and counters that were so deeply trained into him that he didn't know what he was doing—not consciously—until he'd already done it. So he didn't try to think, didn't try to anticipate. Aura was too fast and too strong for that.

The zebra moved suddenly, feinting with his left hoof, and Aura swayed backward, right hoof slashing Horus' right ankle, left hoof blocking the flashing side-kick. His left hoof intercepted the strike that she followed with, and Horus whirled on his left foot, using the momentum of Aura's block to turn still faster. She slammed her right hoof onto the floor and her left hoof came up in a lightning-fast back-kick, but Horus wasn't there. He slipped closer, and grunted as a solid hoof hit him just above his kidneys. Aura's other hand darted forward, snaking around him for the throw, but Horus dropped, pivoted out of Aura's grip, and kicked up through a backward roll. His hooves caught Aura's shoulders and flung her through the air.

Aura hit the pavement with force, she felt the pain spreading through her body for an instant before her implants could neutralize it. It shouldn’t be happening like that! She had tried to react, but the zebra had moved faster than her cybernetic senses could follow. She struggled to get up, most of her artificial skin had been ruined, several bones were broken and her left eye was completely destroyed. She wouldn’t let him win.

Horus brought access and Naomi to conscious rudely.

“Arrghh!” Access screamed as she felts her heart wanting to explode.

“Nightmare Moon’s bleeding horn! This Kamikaze has some kick!” Naomi screamed as she came back to conscious.

“Sorry for that, we didn’t find many medical supplies, but we managed to raid their stash of confiscated material.” Horus spoke while he finished bandaging some of his own wounds while the pegasi kept their distance for a few moments.

“Where are we going?” Naomi asked, Access was still trying to deal with the drug. Being a sararypony she had never needed to use kamikaze. The combat drug had been designed by horses to use during the Crystal Empire annexation, after that it had quickly found its way to the streets where gang ponies loved the increased strength and resistance it gave them and didn’t care about the nasty long terms side effects. The young gryphon however had much more experimental teen years.

“We have improvised a…” Horus begun to say, but was interrupted by a ringing bell.

The tree of them looked at each other for a few seconds before Horus carefully answered the videophone on the back of the Kamekichi.

A blue pony appeared on the screen, an annoyed look on his face.

“Finally! I have been trying to contact you for the last minute. I don’t have much time so I’ll be fast. You have the kamekichi and I have an override code that can open any door in this place. Come get me and I’ll open the doors for you.”

“Wait, who are you?” Horus asked, he was beginning to feel the crash. His body felt heavy as if made of lead, his mind dreadfully slow.

“That’s not important. All that you need to know is that I have a ticket out of here. I’m sending my position to you right now.”

The screen quickly changed to a detailed map of the arcology, a shinning point on the upper floors marked their destination.

“Let…” Horus begun to say, but fainted middle sentence.

Aura rose behind him, her left hoof was still cackling with electricity.

She grabbed a still groggy Access Page by her hoof and hugged her tightly before Naomi or Echo could react.

“Everything will be all right now. I’ll protect you.” Aura whispered on Access ear, her synthetic blood staining Access fur.

Access saw Naomi ready to pounce them, Echo with her holdout pistol ready to shoot, Horus on the floor trying to get up, and even Skande trying to reach for his submachine while still holding the wheel.

She shook her head and hugged Aura, her hooves encircling her ragged form. That way there wouldn’t be more deaths, that way at least they could finally escape this nightmare. They had walked in the hell only because of her, because she had decided to play shadowrunner and had screwed things. They didn’t deserve to die here, Aura didn’t had deserved to die here, to have her body used as a puppet.

Aura jumped through the back door, gaining to the skies with cybernetic grace and precision, her wings taking them through the cramped spaces of the garage with ease. Access saw other pegasi and even some gryphons with metallic wings giving chase to the group. She prayed they would get away.

“I saved you,” Aura spoke happy, smiling with broken teeth. “I’ll not let them harm you anymore.”

Comments ( 3 )

Okay ... so I'm currently thinking the Corporations murdered the Princesses, demonized the Mane 6 for trying to fight back, and caused the Fading ...

7560617
Are you going to take over writing this story?

10740674 Me? Oh, no, no. It would be nice if Savanah returned to this little tale, but its their baby, I'm just along for the ride.

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