You Give Sharks a Bad Name
The world swirled around Sharktavia, bullets of sweat running down her exposed scales. She was surrounded, with twenty three angry assassination machines stairing her down. They were like regular assassins, but they were machines instead. For this was N E W C A N T E R L O T: a space wonderland paradise floating above the clouds of gas giant Broxleton.But below this shimmering Bacchanalian wonderland of glass and steel lay a seedy underbelly of destitution, despair, and... death.
It was here that Sharktavia found herself, staring down the barrel of a space laser, which is like a regular laser, but in space! Woah man!
The leader of the assassination machines snarled menacingly. "Sharktavia, this town ain't big enough for the both of us! Surrender now or prepare to meet your maker."
Sharktavia's eyes darted as she floated on the cushion of shimmering air produced by her mana-tech exoskeleton. Foolish decisions had put her here, and one more unwise choice could prove fatal.
"Well, infidel? Do you surrender, or do you DIE?!"
This was the final line. Sharktavia used her psychic future space shark powers and blasted off in a puff of telekinetic ether. The blast didn't knock down her enemies, but it caught them off guard, and that was the break she needed.
*CRACKLE!* Sky lightning shot from her augmented retinas towards the enemies below. *Shreesh!* The electricity shot into the mechanical bodies seeking her destruction.
The robots shrieked in artificial horror, their voices modulating in terminal anguish. One by one the technological terrors fell lifeless to the ground, sparks shrieking off their bodies in beautiful fatalism. This was life in N E W C A N T E R L O T: it could be beautiful, but so often tragically ephemeral.
Sharktavia breathed a sigh of relief, slowly "swimming" back down on the lackadaisical currents swirling through the soft white underbelly of the city. This had been a close one, a bit too close for the former Xector-J Enforcer. She would have to be more careful next time, or there would be no next time...
It hadn't always been this way. She hadn't always been a shark. Once, she had been a pony. She remembered those halcyon days swimming idly through Ponyville. No! Not swimming, trotting! That all felt so long ago. And indeed, it was. That was 76 years ago. Almost all the ponies she once knew were now dead. A few old acquaintances lived on in retirement homes, riding out the last years of their lives in peaceful senility. She visited them on occasion, on those rare trips to Earth, but it always felt awkward, herself, a nubile shark, trying to relate to the dying husks of her old friends. Names like Lyra and Beauty Brass meant little to her these days. And the one name that meant the most, well, she still couldn't bring herself to say it. Not after what had happened. Not after the accident.
Sharktavia sighed and pulled herself out of her wistful reminiscence. She had work to do. She had a case to crack. And--if the leads were to be trusted--perhaps an old friend to avenge.
The mare--for beneath that scaly exterior lay a creature who still saw herself as at least a little pony--swam purposefully through the streets of the Cardinal District, so called for the once bright red paint that coated the building of this sector. Now, they were faded and rusted, like so much else in this town. Sure, the population was mostly ponies, but other former species of Earth and even the occasional alien cohabited the spacefaring city, so she was not so out of place here. Her angry eyes and scythe-like teeth ensured most people gave her a wide enough berth as she weaved among the populace, and she was fine with this. She had no time for dalliances. She had a cartel to bring down: The Andalusian Asteroids.