Chapter 1: How it Starts

Chapter 1: How it Starts

Trixie Lulamoon was not asleep. Really, she was just resting her eyes. Don’t let the way she was leaning back in her worn out leather chair, hind legs crossed on her cluttered desk, forelegs splayed out to either side of the chair, mouth gaping with a small bit of drool trailing from the corner of her mouth fool you. This is just the way the self-styled “expert private investigator” kept herself charged to leap into action the moment a customer arrived at her prestigious and not at all struggling business!

Okay, she was asleep. And out of work. She was down to the last bit of soy-paste in the food dispenser, and was technically two weeks overdue with the rent on her apartment/office. She might have also owed a substantial tabs at the nearest three bars, to the point where she couldn’t even afford the cheapest synthohol on tap. Her ‘assistant’, Pokey Pierce, had taken an extended leave of absence until she could... well... afford to actually pay him. Which she might have done once, maybe twice.

But Trixie wasn’t concerned. No, not at all. After all, surely a job would come her way eventually. She had excellent credentials! Graduate of the rather exclusive Canterlot Academy of the Magical Arts under a scholarship program funded by Moonrise Arcane Sciences and Technologies. The MAST President and one of the world’s two known alicorns, Luna Equestris, had personally given Trixie her diploma.

Trixie should be swimming in clients! Theoretically speaking. Unfortunately it seemed few appreciated the bargain prices she offered for her incredible magical talents and investigative capabilities. That or as Pokey suggested it had something to do with her tendency to act like “self important jackass”, but what did he know? ... Well, he knew how to bring in clients, and without him around Trixie seemed to be on the fast track to living in the nearest available dumpster.

So in short her life was glitched beyond repair and she couldn’t even get properly drunk to enjoy it. Spending the day in a borderline comatose state seemed as productive as anything else she could do.

Hearing the soft buzz of her apartment's door chime caused the azure blue mare to snort awake, violet eyes flickering open. She glanced to her foreleg where the small silver band of her comlink fit snugly and seeing her AR glasses on the desk before her, next to a mostly drained bottle of synthetic bourbon, she levitated the glasses to her face with a glow of pale blue magic. Once the glasses were perched before her eyes she saw the icons of her apartment spring up through the comlink’s signal.

Yup, somepony was outside her door, chiming it. Trixie yawned and flopped out of her chair, awkwardly trotting towards the door on the other side of the living room, which pulled double duty as her office. She had to weave around clutter that had accumulated since Pokey left, cartons of soy-noodles and empty liters of soda. Her apartment’s cleaner drone had broken down a week ago.

Getting to the door Trixie examined the exterior icons in her AR glasses and frowned. She didn’t see a signal from whoever was outside her door. No comlink icon at all. The drek? Trixie suddenly felt a small grip of fear in her gut and immediately glanced back at her desk where her Street Colt 20 autoloader was in the drawer. If this was a robber should she just wait, arm herself, call plex security...?

“Trixie? Trixie Lulamoon, are you in there?” said a voice from beyond the door, a female tone with an easy, smooth voice that sounded vaguely familiar to Trixie.

The unicorn mare licked her lips in pensive thought, then reached a hoof to the exterior com, saying “If I am who are you and why do you care?”

There was a pause, then “I’m interested in offering you a job. Don’t know if you remember me but its Lyra Heartstrings.”

Lyra Heartstrings? Name didn’t strike any bells, but Trixie scanned her brain, trying to recall... wait...

“Canterlot Academy, you were in some of my classes... we were in a study group together, right?” she shook her head, remembering an easy going mint green unicorn mare, but not much else.

“Great, so you do remember. Can I come in?”

Trixie hesitated a moment longer, then sighed, figuring that if she was about to get robbed there really wasn’t much this mare could take. She brushed the open icon on the door and it slid open to reveal Lyra Heartstrings.

She was a young, fit looking mare, mint green just like Trixie remembered. Gold yellow eyes looked at Trixie over the rim of mirror shade glasses. Lyra was wearing a nondescript gray jacket zipped up to her neck and matching socks on her hind legs. Her mane and tail were a little unkempt, but in a way that seemed styled rather than the result of not caring, both having a shiny gossamer quality to them.

“So, uh, you letting me in or what?” Lyra asked and Trixie realized she’d been staring.

“Yes, yes come in,” Trixie said, shaking her head and standing aside to let Lyra walk in. Lyra entered and gave her apartment a quick look while Trixie signaled the door to slid silently closed.

“Hm, nice place,” Lyra said as she gingerly stepped around the mess.

Trixie frowned, wondering if she was being mocked or not, “Cleaning drone’s out of commission,” she said somewhat defensively as she made her own way back to her desk and sat down.

She didn’t have a spot for a client to sit, but there was a couch up against one of the walls opposite the trid-wall, which was currently playing a random nature channel showing a picturesque forest scene with frolicking animals; the kind of scene you usually only got in well maintained parks. The wildernesses of Equestria since the Awakening were less than pleasant, the nearest one, Everfree, among the most notorious. The fauna there was less about frolicking, more about eating anything that moved.

Lyra didn’t sit on the couch, instead standing relaxed in front of Trixie’s desk.

“So you been doing alright?” asked Lyra, “Been, what, two years since the Academy?”

“You said you were here about a job?” Trixie said, ignoring the question, and not really in the mood for small talk, feeling a little challenged by this other mare who seemed to be doing quite well for herself. That jacket looked like real leather, not the cheap synthetic stuff that was common to the lower class.

Lyra blinked at Trixie, then seemed to drop the casual stance and took on a serious look, “Yes, I do. To the tune of 25,000 bits.”

Trixie tried to keep her jaw from dropping. She was fairly certain she failed but she composed herself quickly, though she couldn’t keep herself from leaning forward on her desk a bit too eagerly, “That’s a... very generous fee, though usually I set my own prices for investigative work-”

“This wouldn’t be an investigation,” said Lyra, “This is more a freelance task that requires your skill with magic. Particularly as an Awakened mage.”

Trixie’s brow creased, “Why that in particular?”

“The job will likely involve you needing to project yourself to the astral plane. You can do that right?”

The snort Trixie gave was mostly of indignation, “Of course I can!”

“Hey, I had to be sure. I remember you were always complaining about the classes on hermetic sorcery.”

“The professors just relied way too much on symbols and form, not enough proper demonstration. I learn better by seeing things done,” Trixie said, then sighed, “Unicorn magic comes more naturally to me anyway. But, yes, I can project, if that’s what you need. Not much else though. I don’t really like using Awakened sorcery.”

Lyra quirked an eyebrow at that, Trixie just shrugging at her, “The magic doesn’t come from me, with sorcery. It comes from the mana permeating everything else since the Awakening. Just feels... off, when I have to use it, alright? Should charge you extra for having to do an astral projection.”

“The price isn’t negotiable. Your cut would be 25k, straight up. This purchases your cooperation, your skills, and most importantly, your discretion.”

Trixie’s complaints were honestly less about the prospect of an astral projection (which she didn’t relish but could deal with), but because she didn’t want to sound too eager. Twenty five thousand bits would set her solid for over a year, but it was just good practice not to leap headfirst into any job offer, desperate or not. Besides, this sounded somewhat... shadowy. Trixie gulped, she’d seen the trid shows. Read the pulp digital novels. Lyra was playing the role to a T, with the dress, the talk. It was kind of surreal, actually. Trixie decided to play along, though she was wary of this being some kind of joke.

“... Riiiiight, okay I’ll bite, Lyra, what exactly is this job?”

“Can’t give you the details up front like this Trixie. I need you in, and with the rest of the team, before we talk about anything compromising. What I can tell you is that you’d be working directly with me my team to perform magical assistance to our operation, which isn’t strictly legal. There would be risks involved, but that’s why your cut is as high as it is. You feeling me, chummer?”

Moon, she’s even using the slang... Trixie blinked. Was this for real?

“So you want me to help you do something that’s... how shall I put this... best done in the shadows?” Trixie was smiling somewhat sarcastically at this.

Lyra sighed, and Trixie could see the eye-roll behind the mirrorshades, “Look, you want me to drop the act? I’ll drop the act if this makes this go faster. Yes, I’m a shadowrunner. No, its not polite, or professional, to actually use the damn terms. Blame popular media for making how our business works public knowledge. But, yeah, you’d be hired to help my team take care of an illegal task me and my team been commissioned to do.”

Trixie snorted, “You’re kidding? You’re kidding right? I mean, I can accept that there are ponies who do that kind of work, but it actually works the way it shows in the trids?”

“More or less. The trid shows make it sound more dramatic than it is, but the terminology is mostly accurate. Now are you interest or not?”

Trixie squinted her eyes at the unicorn across the desk. She barely remembered much of anything about Lyra, other than she was basically laid back and into music. They hadn’t been friends, barely been acquaintances actually. Now her she was, in Trixie’s home, offering her a large sum of bits to help with basically committing a crime.

Now there were few ponies who were in any way connected to modern Equestiran pop-culture that didn’’t know about shadowrunners. They were the worst kept secret in the world; the glorified, romanticized, deniable-asset career criminals who worked dangerous illegal tasks for anypony with the bits to pay them. The unofficial pawns in the battles of espionage and greed between the Megacorps. The soldiers of fortune for the wars between everypony from the street gangs to the largest Metroplex crime syndicates. Even normal everyday citizens could possibly hire a shadowrunner for any kind of clandestine task they wanted done, as long as they had the connections and bits to arrange it.

And apparently Lyra Heartstrings was a shadowrunner, and was offering Trixie a job. She was still half convinced this was a joke. One of those reality prank blogs. It just didn’t seem possible that this was serious. That old saying about how things being too good to be true.

“Let me guess, if I say yes, then don’t like the job, I can’t just back out of it,” Trixie said, more statement than question.

Lyra had a entirely straight look, golden eyes going serious as cold steel and her voice matching, “You got doubts, you say no now, because you’re right, once you’re in, you can’t back out. Too risky for my team to have anypony who knows the details of our job but isn’t on the job.”

Something in that stock stone tense stance, the unblinking way she stared right into Trixie’s eyes, gave Trixie pause. Lyra wasn’t joking. She was dead serious about this. That took Trixie a moment to absorb. She was jobless, borderline homeless, and there were no reason to think that was going to change in the near future. Twenty five thousands bits would... turn a lot of things around. And just how dangerous or illegal could this job be?

“... Well... then when do we meet the rest of our team?”

----------

Right away, apparently.

Trixie had locked up her apartment and followed Lyra down to the elevators, which went down the seventy two floors to the bottom of her apartment tower to the flashy streets of the Canterlot Mextroplex. The neighborhood Trixie lived in was a standard issue lower-middle class residential zone, nearly identical chrome living towers identical to the one Trixie and Lyra just left lining one circular band around the mountain that had once been bare, some five hundred years ago. A vista of similar towers ranged down the mountainside, all the way to a sprawling cityscape of lights that spread for miles into the hills and valleys to the south, east, and west.

The moment Trixie hit the wide concrete sidewalk her AR glasses were lit up with a plethora of icons from advertisements from the local cafes, bars, and shops, to open channels to radio stations, trid stations, taxi services, and personal icons to anypony walking the street who wasn’t hiding their comlinks. The ads for businesses competed in a practical war of images across her vision and she had to quickly adjust the filter settings on her comlink to get rid of most of the irritatingly colorful pop-ups that rushed her vision.

“You alright?” asked Lyra at Trixie’s irritated grunt as Trixie followed the mint green mare down the sidewalk, weaving through the technicolor crowd. Equestria had always been a colorful place, but the modern age had only increased the factor by tenfold with the addition of skinart, AR avatar vanities, and dyes so easy to use a foal could walk around glowing neon green if they wanted. Trixie felt almost under dressed for the street with her simple purple magician hat and and cape, almost antiquated... but they were personal.

“Fine, fine,” Trixie grumbled, “Just haven’t... gone out in a while, forgot to buffer half this drek they want to pump through the airwaves.”

Lyra just chuckled lightly at that and said nothing, walking on, Trixie close behind.

After a moment Trixie noticed they weren’t heading for any of the taxi pools along the sidewalk, instead making for one of the stairways leading down into a vast underground parking garage. Trixie wanted to ask questions, but decided to let Lyra lead on this. She’d gathered her Colt 20 and slung it in a barrel holster under her cape, the snub-nosed light caliber autoloader a comfortable weight on her side. She didn’t like using it, but the streets weren’t always safe, and illusion spells sometimes failed. Rarely, for one as skilled and amazing as Trixie, but it could happen.

Lyra led her to a slim white two door street car, the windows tinted silver. The interior was plain but comfortable and Trixie eased into the seat while Lyra got into the drivers side and got the car started with a soft hum of magic. Trixie blinked, noticing Lyra putting her front hooves on the grooves of the wheel.

“You’re driving personally? Not using the grid system?”

Lyra glanced at Trixie, “Harder to track a car that isn’t using the grid,” she said simply as the car pulled out of the garage and went up a spiral ramp to the surface streets and joined the thick but smoothly moving lines of traffic. Above them up the mountain slope the towers of metal with their shining lights got even higher, the high rise residential apartments and office towers of Megacorps, the most prominent of all the ivory spire that was Moonrise Arcane Sciences and Technologies headquarters. At the base of that spire Trixie could just barely make out the much smaller but somehow more... elegant towers of stone that had once been the ancient Canterlot Royal Palace. Now a closed off site where none were allowed to go. Trixie didn’t even begin to guess as to why MAST’s mysterious alicorn ceo had an issue with anypony entering the old relic; she hadn’t ruled there for centuries. Equestira had no Princess’ anymore; one lost to madness so long ago that most just believed the existence of Celestia and her fall into a power crazed tyrant was little more than a myth, the other to the advancing social changes brought on by the Awakening and the need to adapt to a modern age that no longer needed or wanted a single monarch in charge of things.

Of course its not like Luna still doesn’t run half the country with the power MAST has at its disposal. The biggest fish in the Megacorp pond, she runs Equestria as thoroughly as any sanctioned ruler would... dropping the Princess title was just a formality, replaced with Madame President, Trixie thought idly.

Trixie silently enjoyed the ride, watching the neon cityscape flash by outside the window until she noticed that they were taking a large winding freeway that rolled down the side of the mountain towards the south and east, where the lights glittered less and the landscape was more a patch of rolling darkness in the waning sunlight. Raising her head from where it’d been resting on one hoof propped on the armrest of the seat.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Lyra didn’t take her eyes off the street, her eyes hidden behind her mirrorshades.

“The Ponyville barrens,” was the deadpan reply.

----------

Ponyville... Trixie had never been, and had never particularly wanted to. It was a place somewhat apart from the expansive Canterlot Metroplex, just on the edge where the skyscrapers of polished steel and glass receded to squat warehouses, offices, and small privately owned businesses and apartments. It would have been a quaint suburban zone if not for the fact that it was also a crime ridden gang zone where every other building was an abandoned, graffiti covered haven for those who cared drek-all for the laws of normal polite society. ‘Barrens’ was the term for places like this, where plex security feared to tread, corporate security wasn’t paid to care, and the laws were made by whichever gang held sway in the territory.

The kind of place a civilized unicorn like Trixie would never go intentionally... unless twenty five thousand bits was on the line.

Trixie didn’t know how the Ponyville barrens came to be, exactly. She didn’t know how any barrens did. Seemed a waste to let what otherwise had been decent neighborhoods just... go, like this. More than half the street lights were out, or flickered on and off in spurts. Most buildings had graffiti on them in bright neon paint that glowed with all the colors of the rainbow in the fading light. There was hardly a door to a storefront of apartment housing complex that wasn’t made of thick steel with clear mag-lock bolts on it, and the ones that didn’t have this were either blackened abandoned husks, or had so much gang tags covering them that was a form of security onto itself. There was hardly a street corner that didn’t have ponies, and even a few griffons or minotaurs, in various color forms of leather clad dress, not even trying to hide the weapons they wore.

Trixie’s nervousness must have been showing because Lyra glanced over at her.

“Relax Trix,” Trix?, Trixie frowned but said nothing, “We’re not going to be walking far in this sprawl, and the gangs on our street know me. Long as you’re with me you won’t have to worry about anypony messing around with you.”

“I’m not worried,” Trixie said, perhaps a little too fast and harshly, “I mean... I can take care of myself.”

“Sure, chummer, sure. Look, unplug from the soycafe and quit twitching. Took some convincing to get my team to even agree to bringing in an outsider for this job. Try to act professional.”

“I am professional! I’m the very definition of professional and together and completely in control!” Trixie snapped, then realized what she’d just said and took a deep breath, “I’ll be better once I know just what it is we’re doing.”

Lyra pulled the car into what looked to be a circular pavilion of stores surrounding one... very odd building. While everything else was concrete or steel, this round three story structure was, of all things, made of wood, with a antiquated feel to it. Trixie stared at it and Lyra chuckled, “Ponyville’s old city hall. Kept as a historical antique by the district. The Dashers use it as their base of operations now and keep the place remarkably well maintained.”

“Dashers?”

“One of Ponyville’s top street gangs, though they’re more in control of the airspace than anything else; pegasi exclusive and all, though they’ll let posers into the crowd,” Lyra said casually, like she was playing tour guide.

Trixie just nodded, noticing that there were some darting pony shaped forms hanging around the top balconies of the city hall, pegasi hovering and flying about, mostly just talking with each other but more than a few eyed the passing streetcar and hooves caressed holstered guns. Trixie saw one particular pegasus whose wings gleamed with metal wing razors. None of the pegasi looked like posers to her; ponies who tried to act and look like other pony tribes. Modern cosmetic surgery and bio-tech implants meant an earth pony could sport wings, albeit far less effective ones than natural born pegasi wings. Some unicorns or pegasi got muscle implants to look more like earth ponies. Trixie even heard of horn implants that, while not able to confer any magic, could still make a pony look the part of a unicorn. Then there were the alicorn posers, who got both wings and a horn.

Trixie didn’t get it, but then she didn’t like the idea of implanting any augments or alterations into her body.

Lyra parked the car on the north side of pavilion and hopped out, Trixie following. Lyra paid the Dasher’s no mind, even as a pair broke off from the city hall and buzzed overhead, laughing derisively as they did so. Trixie gulped, trying to not to show her nerves though she felt eyes on her from all sides. Lyra led her down a side alley, moving in and out of pools of light cast from building lights like a phantom flickering in and out of reality. Trixie kept close behind.

Soon they found themselves outside a three story building with a metal girder large enough to fit a truck next to a simple metal door. Lyra didn’t say anything but Trixie noticed the unicorn’s mouth twitch a bit. Subvocalizing something probably. Trixie surmised Lyra must’ve had an internal comlink, an implant, directly controlled by her mind. Trixie suppressed a shudder.

There was a barely audible click and the door opened, Lyra and Trixie trotting inside.

The interior was brightly lit, a garage with benches of tools lining the walls. Most the space was dominated by a steel gray van larger than some pickup trucks, its wheels the heavy off road type and its windows tinted black. Trixie saw the bright yellow legs of a pony dangling from underneath the van’s carriage, with a poofy orange tail swaying as a mare’s voice hummed to the beat of mechanical tinkering. A cutie mark of carrots adorned the grease stained flank of the mare.

“Hoi, CT, I’m back,” said Lyra and the mare beneath the van rolled out from under the vehicle.

She had a pretty face, brightly smiling, with a pair of some of the brightest green eyes Trixie could recall seeing. Her mane of puffy orange curls was only slightly marred by a shaved portion that let the chrome jack-ports stick out, one of them connected to a cable that still ran underneath the van.

“Welcome back Lyra! The other’s are waiting up top. Was just finishing touch ups on the Carrotmobile Vers. 4.8, she’ll be good to go in an hour,” the mare said, then looked over at Trixie, unplugging the cable from her head jack and trotting over. She was an earth pony, Trixie noted now, and had a weird scent to her, a mix of machine oil, freshly turned earth, and... carrots?

“Hoi, chummer, names Carrot Top, but everypony just calls me CT,” she said happily, extending a hoof towards Trixie, “So you’re the wiz our illustrious and fearless leader’s signed up for this run?”

“Seems that way,” Trixie said, hesitating a second before taking the hoof, honestly not eager to get any grease on her otherwise clean hoof, but wanting to get these introductions off properly. Her grandfather had told her the first impression on the crowd was the most important, “My name is Trixie. Investigator and magician extraordinaire!”

Carrot Top blinked at that, “Uh-huh. Good to meet ya Trixie!”

Trixie couldn’t be sure but Carrot Top had definitely just given her a worried look. The earth pony mare hid it well, but it’d been there. Trixie frowned, huffing slightly, but Lyra was already heading for a set of stairs leading the next floor.

“C’mon CT, Trix, let’s get everypony together. Need to get our newest member up to speed.”

“Okay, can we not start calling me ‘Trix’, please?” Trixie asked, “It sounds like a stage name for a exotic dancer.”

Carrot Top and Lyra exchanged glances, then both said almost in sync, “So does Trixie.”

----------

Lyra reflected that perhaps it wasn’t a good start to a working relationship to comment on how a pony’s name made her sound like she spent her evenings getting intimate with a pole. Trixie was fuming, her face a thunderhead of annoyance as Lyra and Carrot Top led her to the living room on the second floor.

“Sorry, sorry, Trixie is a really good name and I totally see how it could relate to your abilities as a magician,” Carrot Top was saying, her apologies somewhat ruined by her still amused smile.

“I have never, and never will, lower myself to... to... stuff like that!” Trixie snapped back, a rose tint blazing across her face as she glared at Carrot Top.

“We’ll call you Trixie for now, just calm down,” Lyra said, gesturing out with a hoof, “Now let me introduce you to everypony.”

The living room was a comfortable if sparse affair, with a large round coffee table taking up the center with a set of simple plush cushions in place of chairs surrounding it. A couch shoved into one corner of the room was occupied by a jasmine coated pegasus mare, her straight teal mane obscuring part of her face as she laid on the couch, foreheads folded behind her head, eyes closed. Forelegs, Trixie noted, that were mostly bright chrome metal, difficult to tell where flesh ended and cybernetic implant began. The metal plating extended to her barrel, though less pronounced, leaving most of her back and hindquarters as flesh and blood.

“The snoozing lump of chrome on the couch is Raindrops, our close combat specialist,” Lyra said.

“I’m not asleep,” the pegasus mare said, one eye opening, “Just resting my eyes.”

At the coffee table a couple of open cardboard boxes contained partially eaten pizza’s and Trixie’s nose twitched at the rich scent of what was, to her surprise, fresh smelling cheese; not artificial. Sitting at the table a magenta earth pony with a well groomed and slicked back mane of two tone pinks reclined with a slice of pizza halfway in her mouth as she gestured and waved her hoof through the air, playing some kind of Neighponese tile game on the trid display projecting from a node in the table. She glanced over at Lyra, Carrot Top, and Trixie entering and waved, setting aside her pizza and coming around the table to meet them.

“Ah, let me welcome you to our merry band,” the magenta mare said, coming straight up to Trixie with a sauntering trot, flanks swaying in a smooth, casual gait. Her eyes were bright, her face a polished smile that put Trixie at ease even as she realized that was the point of it.

“My name is Cheerilee. Think of me as the team’s... facilitator. Normally it would’ve been me to go and take care of potential recruiting, but since Lyra was familiar with you she decided to bring you in herself. I take care of our teams negotiations, logistics, and ensure things go smoothly. Which means if there’s anything you need,” Cheerilee’s eyes locked onto Trixie’s, and the smile deepened into a playful grin, “You just tell me, okay?”

Trixie gulped, then composed herself, remembering that Lyra had told her to act professional. Trixie was a professional!

“Of course. So, is this everypony?”

Lyra glanced about, “Not quite. Where’s Ditzy?”

Cheerilee looked over at Lyra and tilted her head towards one of the back doors out of the living room, “In her room, fully meshed.”

Lyra’s eyes narrowed slightly, “She isn’t hitting the target system already is she? Didn’t she scope it last night?”

“No, no, no, she’s just checking up on her muffin. You know how she is,” said Cheerilee, “Ever the vigilant mother.”

“Ha, I feel bad for whichever colt or filly tries asking that kid out for a night on the town first,” said Carrot Top, “They’ll have eyes on them day and night.”

“How Ditzy runs her personal life ain’t our biz,” said Lyra, heading for the door Cheerilee had indicated, “But I want her out here. Need everypony up to speed.”

As Lyra went through the door Trixie was left somewhat awkwardly to stand between Cheerilee and Carrot Top, and noted out of the corner of her eye that Raindrops still had just the one eye open, and was staring at her. It made Trixie’s hide itch, a primal fear of being sized up by a predator coming to mind. The pegasus mare didn’t blink, just stared, cold and unreadable.

“W-what are you looking at?” Trixie asked defensively, holding her head high despite the way the pegasus’ stare was causing a chill in her spine.

“You,” Raindrops said bluntly, unapologetic and not explaining further.

Cheerilee sighed and stood in front of Raindrops, “Rains, stop scarring the new mare.”

“I’m not scared!” Trixie said immediately, “I just don’t know what she thinks she’s staring at.”

Raindrops slowly rose into a sitting position on the couch, craning her neck left and right with audible popping sounds. She ignored Trixie, looking up at Cheerilee with a deadpan stare. Trixie was at once glad to have the pegasus’ focus off her, and insulted at being ignored.

“Just getting a feel for her,” Raindrops said calmly, “We’re going to be relying on her. She folds from being eyed, how she going to do when the shooting starts?”

“Shooting?” Trixie asked.

“Lyra brought her in,” Cheerilee said, apparently not hearing Trixie’s question, or ignoring it, “I think we can give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“Again I ask, shooting?” Trixie asked, somewhat more anxiously. She felt a hoof on her shoulder and looked to see Carrot Top smiling at her.

“Don’t worry, you probably won’t have to worry about getting shot at in this run,” Carrot Top said, continuing to pat Trixie comfortingly. Trixie would appreciate it more if the earth pony wasn’t getting a little grease on her cape.

“And I know that how? Lyra hasn’t explained anything about what I’m here for other than an astral projection.”

“Well the wait on that is over,” said the mare in question as she exited the back room, another pony trailing behind her. Lyra trotted up to the table and sat at one of the cushions, giving everypony in the room a look, “Gather round everypony, let’s get this gig going.”

Trixie and the others congregated at the table, Carrot Top snatching up a slice of pizza, and another she hoofed towards Trixie with a friendly grin. Trixie blinked in surprise, then gave a grateful nod and floated the slice to her mouth for a nibble. She gave a small whine of delight. Her palate was so used to synthetic soy products with just the standard flavor pastes that she’d forgotten how good real food could be.

“Hi.”

Trixie turned her head to the mare who spoke and nearly dropped her pizza.

Eyes. Bright yellow eyes, more stark than even Lyra’s. Not looking at the same spots. One eye was focused on Trixie, but the other was rolling up towards the ceiling like gravity was reversed. Trixie composed herself, taking in the rest of the mare. She was a gray coated pegasus with a light blonde mane and tail. She had a silver smoothly implanted into her left foreleg, with a pair of datajacks. Her flank bore a cutie mark of... bubbles?

Trixie blinked, for a moment not sure where to look and settling for just staring into the one eye that was looking at her, “Hello.”

“That’s Ditzy,” said Lyra, “Our resident hacker.”

Ditzy got a pouting look, “I still prefer the term decker.”

“Ditzy, nopony’s used an actual cyberdeck in twelve years,” said Carrot Top, munching away at her pizza, offering the gray pegasus a slice, who happily accepted and starting munching away as well.

“I know, I know, but it just sounds cooler. Hacker sounds, I don’t know, like I’m some kind of criminal.”

“Ditzy, we are career criminals,” said Raindrops, one of her ears twitching.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa... whoa,” said Ditzy, holding one hoof out with each ‘whoa’, “I’m a professional systems security analyst who just happens to occasionally help my friends with little side jobs they do, which to my knowledge are completely legal.”

“That’s your story and you’re sticking to it?” asked Cheerilee with a small laugh.

“Mmmhmm,” Ditzy hummed while eating her pizza.

“Anyway,” said Lyra, “While most of you already know what I’m about to go over, the refresher won’t hurt, and Trixie needs to understand the job to also understand the part she’s to play in the job. So with further ado...”

The mint unicorn mare floated out an object from one of the pockets of her jacket, and Trixie found herself curious at seeing it. A data chip. Quaint. Most information was just transmitted wirelessly between devices these days. Ponies rarely kept information on hard sources unless they wanted to put specific encryptions on it and to keep the data off a hackable device. Lyra plugged the chip into an access port built into the table and the trid nodes brought up a display of a three dimensional topographic image.

Trixie noticed a forest of thick trees nestled against a range of hills. In a large artificial clearing in this forest was a facility of buildings, a three story L shaped one surrounded by a number of smaller dome shaped buildings, all encircled by a concrete perimeter wall. A single road led to the facility, snaking out into the forest. Trixie noted that on top of the L shaped building there was a clear landing pad for VTOLs or other aerial craft.

“This is a research installation owned by Aurora Heavy Industries. Our client has hired us to extract an individual from this research facility. According to Mrs. Johnson this pony should be in the main laboratory. We don’t have a name but we were told she’s the only earth pony at the lab, with a gray coat, and black mane. Should be easy to spot”

“Wait, who is she? And why does the client want her?” asked Trixie, and looked left and right as everypony stared at her. She hunched down a bit, “W-what?”

“Usually considered bad form to ask questions about details like that,” said Carrot Top, “Clients hire us to get jobs done without prying.”

“Isn’t there a similar client confidentiality with doing investigative work?” asked Lyra.

Trixie frowned, drawing herself up under the stares, “Not to the point where you don’t ask questions about what you’re doing and why. I wouldn’t just start investigating some random pony at the behest of another without asking why. I’d refuse any job where I felt the client wasn’t giving me enough information to clearly understand the consequences of the job.”

“Doesn’t work the same here,” said Raindrops, “We’re paid not to ask questions.”

“Back on track,” Lyra said, “Ditzy’s initial recon of the facility showed fairly tight security, with a least a dozen on site guards and a similar number of security drones. Place has the standard array of motion tracking and heat sensors that can trip the alarms, security cameras, and at least one mage on patrol.”

Lyra looked at Trixie, “This is why we need you. We’ll need you to astral project to locate the facility’s mage. You don’t have to neutralize, them, just find them and give us a location so we can take care of it. Also find any wards or defensive spells the facility might have. Again I got something of my own to neutralize that stuff with, but I can’t find them. I’m hoping you can.”

“I...” Trixie took a deep breath, “I should be able to do that.”

She didn’t like the situation. This sounded like a foalnapping, only minus the foal. How had Lyra even gotten into this kind of work? How had any of them? From what Trixie saw the only pony here who seemed to fit the role was Raindrops. Trixie kept the opinion to herself though, not wanting to make herself look even more out of place than she was already feeling. Easier to just think about the twenty five thousand bits she could earn just by doing a quick astral projection and finding a few wards.

“Good,” Lyra said, “So with that settled here’s how I intend for the rest of this to go down..."

Chapter 2: How it Escalates

View Online

Chapter 2: How it Escalates

Trixie did not like nature. In her mind if ponies were actually meant to live together with things like plant life and deal with non-manufactured weather then why would they have constructed the Metroplexes? Give Trixie nice artificial weather that didn’t involve freezing cold rain and an environment that wasn’t out to kill her, or at the very least mess up her perfectly groomed mane with countless snatching branches and offending twigs and she’d be a happy pony.

Right now Trixie was not a happy pony.

“Will you shut it already?” said the chromed up walking weapons arsenal known as Raindrops, gruff voice even harsher with barely restrained anger, “I swear, if I hear you groan or whinge one more time about some drek getting in your mane I will trim the damned thing off.”

As if to emphasise her point the mare lifted one metallic hoof and a slim blade with a wave pattern extended with a barely audible but still quite intimidating *schck* sound. Trixie gulped, staring wide eyed at the mare.

“Rains, ease off girl,” said Carrot Top, “We’re all a little moody. Don’t think any of us except you enjoy the wild outdoors.”

The ‘team’, as it were, was tromping through the thick underbrush of the Everfree wilderness, having had to leave the Carrotmobile a few miles back at the end of the rough trail that driving up had nearly rattled Trixie’s teeth out. The rest of the way to the compound was going to be on hoof, and Trixie had not been enjoying a second of it.

The head of the team was taken by Lyra, the mint unicorn moving through the dense foliage with the ease of water trickling off a leaf. She had traded in her gray jacket for a darker midnight blue full body suit that Trixie was fairly certain was armored, and slung across her back was a matte black case so large that Trixie could only guess at what it contained. Lyra had left her mirrorshades behind, her gold eyes now scanning the murky forest ahead with narrowed, keen glances. Behind her was Cheerilee, wearing a stylish short cut black vest with a single holster for what Trixie noticed was a Appleosian Red Skorpion machine pistol. Ditzy was walking next to Cheerilee, not wearing any armor or clothing at all beside a simple holster for her own weapon, not a firearm but a four-prong taser that Trixie saw some of the high style nightclub bouncers carry. The gray pegasus had a happy bounce to her steps as she quietly chatted with Cheerilee, Trixie unable to make out the words.

Next in the line was Carrot Top, who was wearing a thick beige jacket with numerous bulky saddlebags hanging off it that clinked and clanked slightly as the yellow earth pony tromped heavily, breaking past branches that Trixie otherwise tried to avoid. Carrot Top had a thick, blocky and short barreled weapon slung across her chest; a auto-shotgun of some sort, but Trixie couldn’t tell what model.

Then there was the walking weapons locker that was Raindrops. That pegasus was right behind Trixie, bringing up the rear of their collum. Trixie found Raindrops complaints about her noise doubly annoying because Raindrops made at least as much noise through the sheer amount of weapons strapped to her own flanks. A bandolier of grenades clinked alongside a double holster containing large, intimidating revolvers that Trixie was fairly certain were illegally high caliber... but those were nothing compared to the monster of a machine gun perched on her back; something Trixie was pretty sure was meant to be mounted on an APC rather than carried by one pegasus mare.

Trixie herself still had her Street Colt 20, but it had been joined by a heavier autoloader that Lyra had insisted she take; a Timberwolf IV. Trixie had zero intention of using the bulky pistol but Lyra had explained that the Colt 20 would, at best, irritate a fully armored guard and that if things went south the team would need every gun it could get. Trixie was also, much to her chagrin, forced to leave behind her cape and hat. Not suitable to stealth, though she’d tried to explain that if she was going to be using Invisibility spells what did it matter? Apparently it did, because Lyra hadn’t taken no for an answer and now Trixie was wearing a snug black body suit that was basically light kevlar without sacrificing any flexibility.

She was nervous, she couldn’t deny that, and getting more nervous with each step closer to their destination. Twenty five thousand bits was sounding less and less as substantial a sum as she first thought. She was a private investigator, not a wilderness scout! And why did she need such a big gun!? There wasn’t supposed to be any shooting going on, at least none where she was involved!

Raindrops had gone sullenly quiet, her tail giving a single hard flick. Trixie gulped, not daring to look back but feeling the pegasus mare's eyes on the back of her head like a smartgun targeting reticle. In fact it was likily Raindrops did have a smartgun system built into her. Or a rocket launcher. Or a rocket launcher with a smartgun system.

Trixie blinked as an icon popped into view in front of her, a tiny winged letter with a muffin stamp on it. Her AR glasses had long since stopped picking up anything from the Canterlot Metroplex's Marix grid so this had to be one of her new team looking to chat. The icon was marked a private, so nopony else but her and the one who sent it would be able to see it. With a pensive shrug Trixie touched the icon with her horn. The envelope flapped open and a tiny cartoon muffin with big golden walled eyes hopped out, smiling brightly as it held up a letter, it's words scrawled in a bubbly large script.

~Don't worry Trixie! Only reason Rainy is giving you such a hard time is because she's worried about everypony, you included. She'll ease up once she's gotten used to you. Oh, do you have any foals!? I do! Want to see her?~

Before Trixie could respond a whole invading army of image icons spammed their way into her view; all holopics of what appeared to be a unicorn filly with a light lavender coat and a mane the same color as the team’s hacker... Ditzy Doo was the name, as Trixie recalled. Well, that explained who this message was from. Trixie stared at the holopics in her AR hud for a moment. The filly was certainly adorable. Trixie considered herself relatively good with foals, despite her lack of experience with them, but she had no intention of ever having any of her own. After all to have foals she’d have to... do... that...

Seeing the hacker mare glancing back at Trixie with an expectant grin on her face, one golden eye haphazardly sliding up to look at the forest canopy while the other looked right at Trixie, Trixie gulped and put on what she hoped was a winning smile. She brought up a AR keypad and with a few flicks of her horns magic typed out a return message.

~She’s a very cute filly. You must be quite proud of her.~

Ditzy nodded enthusiastically. A return message quickly popped up and Trixie noted she didn’t see Ditzy make any gestures on any kind of AR keypad of her own, so Trixie could only surmise that Ditzy had an internal software chip that allowed her to operate her comlink through just her thoughts. Trixie had... no interest in getting that intimate with cyberware, no matter how nice the perks.

~I am! She’s such a good foal, and works hard. It’s just, Ditzy’s expression drooped, her muzzle pointing down, her ears flattening, and even Trixie’s hardened investigator heart broke a little at the bubbly mare looking so down, she’s have a hard time with her magical studies, and I just can’t afford a tutor for her. Lyra’s always too busy with her ‘perfectly legal side business’ that I can’t ask her to help either. I was wondering if you knew anypony you could recommend who's a good teacher, but might be willing to tutor on the cheap.~

Trixie frowned.

~What makes you think I would know anypony like that?~

~You went to Canterlot Academy of Magical Arts, graduated 4th in your class, with honors, and were head of the Young and Promising Unicorn’s Awards program. You must know a lot of good teachers, or even TA’s and fellow students who might be looking for a little part-time tutor work I figure.~

~Wait, did Lyra tell you all that?~

~No, I looked up your records myself!~

~When?~

~Before we left the safe house. The Academy has really weak IC on its system and its security spiders are asleep at the wheel. I’m kinda surprised, your records are kinda weird.~

~I can’t believe you hacked into the Academy system casually like that! Do you know how much trouble you could...wait, what about my records?~

~Huh? Nothing, really. Just, well, there were signs of data editing on several of your grade files, as well as a few odd links to outside data files that, when I looked at them, were encrypted. Nothing I couldn’t have broken through, but I didn’t have a reason to dig that deep... just thought it odd. Student files usually don’t have signs of doctoring of that professional a level, and why encrypt anything associated with them to begin with? Most that information is available to the staff and students upon request. You don’t encrypt files like that. Anywho, no biggie if you don’t know anypony, just figured I might ask is all! Dinky’s been feeling frustrated with her magic and I can’t help her, being a pegasus and all.~

Trixie found herself speechless, or, well, textless for a few moments. Her files were doctored? As in altered? How? She shoved the thought aside and hastily replied.

~I, uh, don’t know anypony per se, but let’s see how our own professional relationship developes. Perhaps, assuming all goes well, we can make an arrangement. I’m quite the skilled mage if I don’t say so myself. Also for future thought, when we’re not walking into imminent danger, I’d like to know more about my student files.~

~Hey no problem! But if you’re going to tutor my muffin I ought to let you know-

Ditzy glanced back at Trixie and Trixie was treated to what was both the most friendly and yet most chilling smile that had ever been directed at her.
-don’t ever make my muffin cry, ‘kay?~

Trixie didn’t respond except to nod with wide eyes. Ditzy’s smile widened and lost the creepy chill-factor as the pegasus trotted on with more a bounce in her step. Trixie didn’t know what to make of that but heard Carrot Top pull up next to her.

“Made a friend?” the earth pony asked, giving Trixie a knowing wink.

“I think so? She, uh, really likes her foal.”

“Ditzy’s a momma bear to the extreme,” Carrot Top said, nodding, “So, you work as a detective, huh? How’s that business? Dated a stallion who worked that field; guy never seemed to have steady work. Er, not that I’m saying you don’t. Just curious.”

Trixie frowned, but quickly schooled her face to a smile, though it was a strained one. Carrot Top couldn’t have known she was poking the proverbial wound. No reason to be irritated at her.

“Its a very... fluid field. Dynamic! You never know what kind of case will come your way,” or when it will come your way, “and it makes for a stimulating work environment, “ when you happen to have work and aren’t passed out on your desk, “I find it quite fulfilling.”

Fulfilling, for everything except her bank account.

“Doesn’t sound so different from running the shadows, only probably not so well paid,” Carrot Top said with a thoughtful expression, “Or as much chance of getting shot at. That why you decided to go into detective work, the excitement?”

“Not exactly,” Trixie said, smile slipping somewhat, “It’s kind of a stepping stone to something grander. You’re familiar with M.A.S.T of course. Who isn’t? Its the most prestigious and well connected Megacorp in Equestria. Well, I’m interested in getting to the top of that particular corp ladder.”

Carrot Top tilted her head, eyes blank. Behind Trixie, Raindrops scoffed.

“Corp wannabe. Figures.”

Trixie ignored the cybered up pegasus and kept her eyes on Carrot Top, “You look confused?”

“Well, just don’t figure how being a private detective is a ‘stepping stone’ towards getting to the top of Moonrise Arcane Science Technologies. You’ll have to explain that one to me.”

“Its quite simple,” said Trixie, mood improving as she got on a roll to explaining her ‘master plan’, “I researched what jobs receive the fastest promotion tracks in most Megacorps, and it just happens to be the security branches. However there’s no internship or simple entry level job in such a branch that isn’t grunt work; very unsuitable to a mare of my talents. However, security mages are higher on the proverbial totem pole, and if one happens to already have a background in a similar field to security it’s that much easier to get one’s hoof in the door! So once I graduated from college I started up my private investigator’s business to get that very experience! I figured after a year or two of successful cases solved I’d have quite the resume to put into M.A.S.T; then it’d be the fast track to the top for the Affluent and Talented Trixie!”

“Great,” said Raindrops, “So not only are you a wash-out detective, but you’re delusional too?”

Trixie halted, taking in a sharp breath and turning around to face the pegasus, “Okay, that’s it. What is your problem with me?”

Everypony stopped as Trixie and Raindrops faced off, the jasimine pegasus regarding Trixie with eyes going sharp and hard as a knife edge. Trixie resisted the urge to lick her now very dry lips as she felt her legs want to start shaking. Still, she was quite tired of this mare’s nettling and this needed sorting out before they actually got into a dangerous situation that required her to rely on this pegasus.

“My problem with you?” Raindrops asked, face still, too still. In Trixie’s experience anypony whose expression when that stoney was trying far too hard to hide their emotions, “I don’t have a problem with you. I have a problem with you being here, now, on this run. Anywhere else, wouldn’t give a jack about you. Right now, though, you’re a botch waiting to happen. A botch that could get any of my friends fragged.”

“Raindrops, we got a problem over there?” asked Lyra as she came around from the front of the group and looked between Raindrops, “You got something you want to run by me?”

Raindrops looked at Lyra and Trixie would see the hesitation flicker across her eyes. The cybered up street samurai pegasus with the anti-vehicle machine gun on her back... was hesitating at Lyra just asking a question.

“Lyra, she’s... this mare is trouble, I can feel it in my chrome,” Raindrops said, tilting her chin up a bit, straightening her posture, wings flaring up halfway, “We should get another mage. One who’s been on a few runs. Amethyst-”

“Is trying to get out of the biz and go legit,” said Ditzy, and hung her head, “And she wouldn’t want to do a run with me on it anyway.”

Raindrops frowned, “Well, what about that one we used for the job in the Hoofington Barrens?”

“Rarity? I thought you hated working with her?” said Carrot Top with a quizzical raise of her eyebrow and a off hoof gesture.

“I...wasn’t fond of her. But she was competent, and kept her cool under fire. I at least know I can trust my back to her and not get shot, which is more than I can say for this mare here!”

“‘This mare here’ has a name,” said Trixie firmly, “Trixie. Say it with me now.”

Raindrops lips tightened and a low growl issued from her throat, “Don’t push me horn waggler, I could break-”

“What?” Lyra said and was suddenly, in a flash faster than Trixie thought anypony could move without cybernetic arguments, right in Raindrops face, “What could you break?”

Raindrops didn’t back away, but her eyes were slightly wide at Lyra being nose to nose with her, “...Nothing.”

Lyra eased off a step, and Trixie was amazed at how relaxed the mint colored unicorn looked despite what had just happened, “Good, then we’re all chill. Trixie is here because I trust her, and that means you should give her the benefit of the doubt and lay off the hard talk. Give her a chance, she may surprise you.”

“Fine,” said Raindrops with a soft, barely audible huff. The rest of the team got back into formation and resumed the trek through the woods, Trixie not sure what to make of what just happened. Not that she was complaining, but why did Lyra trust her so much, and want to stand up for her like that?

The question bounced around in Trixie’s mind for a minute or two but was soon replaced by being irritated with the horrible dense foliage of the Everfree and the growing worry that something might leap from the shadowy confines of the underbrush. It was no secret that Everfree was a untamable wilderness, and rumors of all manner of creatures both deadly and magical making this place their home was common among the bars Trixie tended to frequent. Trixie half expected the only reason a ferocious manticore or pack of ravenous Timberwolves didn’t attack the party was because there was easier prey in this forest than six heavily armed ponies.

After another hour of silent trudging and jumping at shadows (Trixie doing most of the jumping) the team arrived on a ridgeline. The ridge had thick trees lining it all the way to the lip, where the forest just seemed to... fall away to a field of suspiciously even and tall grass. Trixie recognized a manufactured field when she saw one, the uniform grass flowing out in a green sea for a hundred yards in all directions surrounding the Aurora Heavy Industries compound.

Trixie noticed that the facility was exactly as it had appeared in Lyra’s data chip schematics. A single plain dirt road led in a gentle, snaking curve through the tall grass and into the forest, connected to the facility at a large security gate built into the thick concrete wall that surrounded the entire compound. The huge three story L-shaped building that was supposedly the main research lab and administration building was mostly covered in tinted black windows that didn’t show whether or not there were any lights on inside. Luna’s moon hung in a sharp crescent in the sky amid a beautiful field of stars, stars that Trixie hadn’t seen in some time with this level of clarity. The Canterlot Metroplex tended to produce a lot of light pollution.

“Enjoying the view?” asked the magenta earth pony, Cheerilee, who had sauntered up next to Trixie while Carrot Top and Ditzy went about setting up some kind of tiny command post. The pair had started pulling out equipment, including a small antenna array, and a trio of matte black cases that when Carrot Top opened them Trixie could see contained metallic discs.

“Go my children,” Carrot Top said with a small giggle as she sat by the cases and closed her eyes. The three metal discs extended small magic-tek ventral ports and floated up into the air, lenses flipping up from the top of their heads like tiny bug-like eyes. Drones of some sort, and apparently under the rigger mare’s direction the drones sped off, one along the treeline in either direction, and the third up to the top of the tree-line.

“I...uh, I suppose?” Trixie said in answer to Cheerilee’s question, “It’s just been some time since I’ve seen such a clear night sky.”

Cheerilee’s smile was oddly infectious, “You’ll get to see all kind of things if you stick with us.”

“Sorry, but I’m not planning on making myself into a career criminal,” Trixie said with a soft snort, then realized who she was talking to and hastily added, “Not that its not a valid choice for some.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t snap your head off like Raindrops. This isn’t the lifestyle for everypony,” Cheerilee said with an easy laugh that Trixie found both relaxing and somewhat irritating. This mare seemed far too easy going for her chosen profession. Trixie thought it had to be some kind of facade, since Cheerilee had said she was the group’s ‘facilitator’, which meant she had to be able to seem friendly and outgoing, to put those she negotiated with at ease.

“Okay girls, its time,” said Lyra, coming up to the middle of the group. She had the long black case off her back, floating in a soft gold aura of magic as she set it down and opened it up. Parts floated out, dark gray and sleek, and with smooth fluid motions assembled into a scoped sniper rifle that Trixie imagined you could use to hunt dragons, if you were feeling extreme. Lyra, apparently, felt very extreme. The sniper rifle had two barrels, one smaller than the other, and the scope had a large holoscreen that Trixie recognized had a arcane matrix meant to interface with a unicorn’s horn. Her own AR glasses used a similar magi-tech device to interface with her own horn. Much cleaner and simpler than having the necessary chips installed if you were a pegasus or earth pony.

“Ditzy, you get to work on the security side. Get in, get hidden, be ready to play Tartarus with their system when we need it,” Lyra said and Ditzy saluted with a grin, her lazy eye pointed at the ground.

“Can do boss mare! I’ll be snug as a bug inside their main cpu node before you know it!”

“Good. Carrot Top, you already on surveillance?”

“My little sprites are snooping about as we speak,” said Carrot Top, eyes staring off into space, not seeing the area around her but rather looking through the mechanical eyes of her drones, “Also, Rabbit Buster is on his way, in case we need the backup.”

“Here’s hoping we don’t need it. Raindrops, Cheerilee, you two good?”

“Eager as a beaver Lyra,” said Cheerilee, her eyes looking over the distant compound through a small imaging device she’d suddenly fitted around her right eye, like a glass monocle, “I’m already seeing a wiz little route we can take and have a spot on the wall picked out for us. Once we’re over, I’ll find us a good access point.”

“I’m set,” said Raindrops levelly, “When things get dicey, I’ll make sure they don’t stay that way for more than few seconds.”

“Right then, that leaves you Trixie. Before we move in, we need their arcane security located and neutralized. You ready?”

Trixie blinked, now that everypony’s attention was on her. She straightened her shoulders and raised her head, suppressing the butterflies in her stomach. This was her moment to shine, and she fully intended to rise to the occasion, “Of course I am. First, let me just take a look at the place on the astral plane. Won’t take but a moment.”

She approached the edge of the ridge line as the others looked on and focused her eyes upon the A.H.I facility. Trixie took in one, long, slow breath, held it, then let it out. It never stopped feeling off, using magic without her horn. In a way she wondered if her unicorn magic felt jealous whenever she tapped into the magic of the astral plane. It was a different experience, to be sure, not the focus on the wellspring of magic in her horn, but rather like calming her mind and touching a space at the pit of her chest that...resonated with the rest of the world.

Like flicking on a light switch she opened her eyes and looked upon the astral plane. It was a mirror of the physical world, all living things casting brilliant reflections into a realm of shifting colors, mostly numerous shades of blue, violet, and white. The forest was a glowing, radiant sea of shifting light, the forms of trees blending together into a solid wall of life. That was good, because it meant as long as she and the others were inside the tree line any mages or spirits guarding the facility wouldn’t be able to pick them out from among the glare of life energy from the forest.

Trixie immediately noticed that the tall grass was a different matter. It wasn’t glowing brightly at all, in fact it was a deep, dark cobalt blue. Trixie guessed it was bred to put off such an aura. Anyone approaching the facility through that field would be easy to pick out; their life aura glowing brightly against a near black backdrop. Which meant somepony was guarding this place from the astral plane, otherwise such a defense would be pointless.

She looked over the facility with her astral eyes, features creasing into a frown as she noticed the concrete walls were alight with the opaque white energy of a very sizable ward net. It wouldn’t affect physically crossing the wall, but any astral form trying to pass would get caught in the net; it extended over the facility like a thin dome. Trixie couldn’t be sure from this range, but she thought the ward was weak at the apex. If she needed to she could probably push through, not that she had any reason to. Going through would alert whoever was protecting the place... speaking of which, where could this pony be?

If there was a mage on site they’d want to be somewhere they could easily observe their surroundings. With a frustrated sigh Trixie let her eyes slip back into the physical world and looked over at Lyra, who was giving her an expectant look of her own.

“The area has a ward over it. It won’t impede your progress but it may well trigger an alarm. I’ll have to get closer to it to see if I might be able to open a hole you could get through. As for the mage they have guarding the area, I’ll have to take a closer peek to spot them.”

“Well, that’s what we brought you here for. Can you do it?” asked Lyra.

“I should be able to. Yes, yes I can. This might take a little while though, and my body will be...immobile while I’m doing it,” Trixie said, with a sour look, “Just keep an eye on me while I’m out, and don’t jostle me or anything! Or draw anything on my face!”

Cheerilee hastily put away a pen she’d taken out of a breast pocket and smiled innocently, “What?”

Lyra coughed and said, “I think we can restrain ourselves while you’re projecting, Trixie. Just don’t take too long. Oh, and be careful.”

Trixie quirked her head slightly at Lyra’s rather sincere tone, but didn’t question it. Instead she settled down on her barrel, tucking her legs comfortably underneath her on the wet, cool grass. Slowly she terminated extraneous thoughts from her mind and felt the pulse of the world around her, the astral plane’s ever present tug at her essence. Trixie let herself slip away from her body like somepony might slip out of a cloak, and when she opened her eyes it was not the eyes of her physical body but that of her astral form.

Trixie took a calming breath, despite the fact that her ‘body’ now required no air. It was just a way to relax herself, find her center. She didn’t particularly like astral projection. It,quite frankly, weirded her out. She could see her own body sitting right where she left it, looking for all the world like she’d tucked down for a nap. The other ponies on Lyra’s team were either watching her, or starting to resume watch on the facility. Lyra herself was actually looking at Trixie’s astral form, and Trixie heard the mint unicorn chuckle under her breath.

“A tad over the top, isn’t it Trixie?” she asked, and Trixie had to take a second to realize what Lyra meant.

When a pony, or a mage of any species for that matter, projected their essence onto the astral plane their astral form could take on... many shapes. For some, like the shamanistic practitioners of Zebra or Minotaur tribal traditions it was often a form revolving around their mentor spirit’s image. For others, like the persona’s of the hackers in cyberspace, they crafted their astral form intentionally along specific tastes. For many, they simply took on a form that was the idealized expression of their own ego.

In Trixie’s case she looked very much like herself; if every aspect of her was emphasized for radiance and power. She was taller in this form, with a more pronounced horn. Her mane was silver starlight dancing in as if in a soft breeze, and of course she was wearing highly stylized versions of her traditional magician’s hat and cape; with far more embroidery than what was on the real objects.

“I don’t think its that over the top at all,” Trixie said defensively, assuming Lyra was projecting her senses into the astral plane and could hear her metaphysical voice.

Lyra confirmed that by nodding, “Yeah, I suppose. At least you didn’t give yourself wings. Was half expecting that.”

“Please, even I’m not going to masquerade as an alicorn...although...” Trixie thought about it a moment, letting a pair of metaphysical wings sprouted from her astral form. She gave them a few experimental flaps, then shrugged and let them dissipate, “Nah, they get in the way of my magnificent cape.”

“Boss, its kind of freaky hearing you chatting it up with thin air,” pointed out Carrot Top.

“Why? We chat over our links all the time” said Ditzy, whose walled eyes were staring off into nothing, her senses and mind almost as disconnected from her body as Trixie’s. Trixie didn’t know much about how hacker’s operated, but if Ditzy was still physically talking she hadn’t gone into a full VR dive, but was still remotely working through the AR systems of her comlink.

“Yeah, but that’s normal,” said Carrot Top, waving a hoof around above Trixie’s body, “This is somepony taking their soul for a drive while leaving their body behind like a hat. Its kind of wiz, but at the same time, pretty glitched if you think about it. What if something happens to her body while she’s gone? Or what if she gets her soul injured? How’s that work? Least if one of my babies get’s popped by a missile I got buffers to protect my brainpan from frying, and you can jack out of the Matrix if worse comes to worse. This mojo stuff seems way more dangerous than normal unicorn magic,”

“It is, and even sixty years post Awakening we’re still learning the rules of the new magic,” said Lyra solemnly, and Trixie saw the mare’s gold eyes glisten and flick towards the ground for a moment, “Ponies have gotten burned bad trying to learn them, but we make do. Now, Trixie, you got a job to do. We’ll sit tight until you find that facility’s guard mage. Anything goes wrong though, you get your glowing spectral flank back to your body, chummer. No stupid risks.”

“Right, smart risks only,” Trixie said with a cheeky smirk, though immediately regretted it as Lyra moved forward and put a hoof on her. On her astral form! Trixie gulped, feeling the power, the mana running through Lyra’s arm as it touched her chest with a light prod. That would’ve only been possible for an Awakened, and the ease of which Lyra moved, her speed, it clicked in Trixie’s head what Lyra was. A physical adept. Like some Awakened turned their magic externally towards spells, while others focused it internally, enhancing their physical abilities in ways that rivaled any amount of cyberware.

Lyra’s eyes bored into Trixie, fixing her like a pair of gold spears. Lyra’s voice carried no anger, indeed it was smooth and cool as a winter sky.

“Don’t slot around Trixie. You only got the one life.”

“O-Okay, okay! I’m going. I’ll be careful,” Trixie said, hastily floating up and away from Lyra, feeling a tremble through her astral form. Lyra kept watching her until Trixie got to the top of the treeline. Movement in astral space was as easy as thinking, and much faster than physical movement. Trixie had herself situated at the top of the trees in moments, and once there was quick to weave a spell to mask her astral presence. It was a simple modification of a physical camouflage spell. It didn’t remove her astral glow, just made it blend in with the ambient tinge of the astral plane around her. Unless the security mage was right on top of her with a sensory spell she’d be pretty much invisible to him or her. Of course that wouldn’t help her get past the ward, just approach it.

Once her nerves had settled Trixie flew out towards the facility, reaching the apex of the glowing opaque ward dome in seconds. Up close she could see she was right, the top of the dome had a few weak strands in the weave of the ward that a savvy mage could snag and pull apart, leaving an opening to get past the ward. She didn’t go for it. It was an obvious trap. Trixie almost snorted at how simple a lure it was. Did this other mage really expect anypony to fall for this?

Trixie quickly did a circuit around the ward, looking for any actual weaknesses she might exploit, all while keeping an ample eye out for the other mage. On her second sweep around the dome she was starting to get frustrated. She could accept that the ward was just well made enough that there weren’t any openings except for the obvious ‘It’s a trap!’ at the apex. What she was started to fume over was the complete lack of any sign of a mage on site. There had to be one around somewhere! If they were inside the building they wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on their ward! Mundane materials like steel and stone would block astral perception, and unless they had servant... spirits... to...

Trixie facehoofed. Hard.

Of course, why would a mage spend time doing something they could bargain a spirit into doing for them? If Trixie wasn’t horrible at summoning and bargaining with spirits herself she’d have had a cadre of her own to run favors for her. If the mage had a spirit or two watching the ward for them they wouldn't have to expose themselves. Now then, what kind of spirits might she be dealing with and where were they? The easiest kind of spirit for a job like overwatch would be an air spirit. Which could be anywhere. They were air.

Trixie hadn't sensed presences like that, but then she’d be so focused on the ward she hadn’t been really trying to spot spirits either. Well, easy to shift focus. She floated back up towards the apex of the dome, holding the camouflage spell around herself tightly, as she refocused her senses to try and pick up any traces of faint astral forms in the air. An air spirit could be pretty shifty, almost at good at blending in as she was.

Narrowing her astral eyes she huffed, getting frustrated when she didn’t immediately- wait, what was that? She saw a wisp of astral energy wafting around the apex of the ward dome, for just a second. She smiled. Gotcha. It was probably watching the trap portion of the ward, waiting for some poor foal to try going through that way. Trixie slowly floated towards the spot where she saw the wispy strands of astral air energy, like breath misting in cold air.

Trixie considered. She could report back to the team what she found, but what good would that do? Its not like shooting an air spirit would do much to it. Lyra would be able to damage it with her physical adept magic, but kind of hard to punch something that can fly. No, this was clearly a job for the incredible, hard-bitten detective mare herself! Never mind that she’d gotten among the lowest marks in her class not only in spell combat but also in astral combat, but it was just one air spirit. How hard could taking it out be?

Trixie raised a still camouflaged hoof and began to weave a pattern. She’d found it so strange in her studies, that most magecraft required physical gestures and even words and writings of power to focus the mana. So different from the innate magic in her horn. In fact among the worst things about astral projection was that all of her power resided soely in her skill in manipulating mana. Separated from her physical body, she literally had no horn to draw on her unicorn magic.

. As she finished the gestures with her hoof she felt the mana from the astral plane coalesces at the edge of her fetlock. The air spirit must have noticed the gathering of mana as well because it began to solidify into a boiling, tiny cloud of fog and surge towards her.

“Oh no, Trixie won’t be letting you get close!” she said as she made a final sharp gesture with her hoof while at the same time floating backwards. A shimmering, iridescent orb of mana flung from her hoof, directed as much by her will as it was by her flinging gesture.

The orb smacked into the air spirit in a burst of scintillating blue hues and Trixie heard a hollow shrieking howl that made her wince. The air spirit wasn’t happy with her, and worse, her mana ball had only slowed it down just a shave. Trixie wasn’t fast enough to evade as the spirit as it enveloped her, becoming a swirling tornado of slashing wind. While the wind likely had a presence in the physical world as well, the more immediate effect on the astral plane was that the wind was cutting into any astral form it touched; mainly Trixie’s.

She screamed in pain and hastily forced herself out of the air spirit’s embrace, focusing all her efforts on maintaining her camouflage. The only reason the air spirit knew where to attack the first time was because she’d given away her position with the mana ball, but now that she was flying straight up in a zig-zagging pattern. Pain wrapped around her and penetrated her to her core. It was similar to pain in a real body, but somehow so much worse because it was representing wounds to her very essence.

A quick glance behind her showed her the air spirit was in pursuit. She doubted it knew exactly where she was, as it wasn’t bee lining for her, but it seemed to have a sense of her general direction. Realizing she wouldn’t be able to lose it easily, Trixie did the only thing she could. She turned around and prepared to make a fight of it.

Or at least a fight in the Trixie style.

The air spirit surged upward when it saw Trixie appear before it, another mana ball in hoof. Confident it could evade another attack and finish off this troublesome opponent the air spirit went right for Trixie. It flowed around the tossed mana ball with sickening speed and once more enveloped Trixie, slashing at her with astrally charged blades of air. However it quickly noticed something was wrong. This particular air spirit considered itself fairly cosmopolitan, as spirits went, and in its experiences... unicorn’s weren't supposed to be laughing as their astral bodies were torn to shreds.

When the Trixie inside the air spirit vanished in a puff of blue astral smoke, the air spirit had a second to realize its error before the real Trixie launched her equally real mana ball right into the spirit’s form. Trixie had been intending to follow up with a second mana ball right after the first, but she must have struck some sort of sweet spot in the air spirit, because the air spirit dissipated a moment later.

Trixie remained camouflaged for a moment, collecting herself and doing the astral equivalent of blinking in surprise. Then she grinned and pumped her hoof, “As if there was ever any doubt...ow...”

With the guarding spirit out of the way she could take her time opening a hole in the ward so she and the team could pass through. There was still the matter of the air spirit’s master, but if they were inside the building, chances were they were being lax and assuming their spirit had things well in hoof. They wouldn't notice the spirit being gone immediately, unless they did regular checks...which Trixie realized they might, so she had to hurry and get back.

Returning to her body was as easy as thinking it, her form snapping back to her body. She gasped as she opened her real eyes and felt her physical body, slightly stiff from having remained still while she was out. There was a startled yelp in front of her, followed by a laugh, and Trixie saw Cheerilee sitting in front of her, the magenta mare having fallen back on her rump.

Trixie noticed the black felt pen in Cheerilee’s mouth, and sighed, “Mustache or beard?”

Cheerilee chuckled, “Mustache, of course!”

“I tried to stop her,” Raindrops said in a tone and with a smirk that suggested she’d done no such thing.

“Trixie, did everything go alright?” asked Lyra, who’d set up her sniper rifle and was lying in front of it, looking through the scope, “I saw you tussle with something, but couldn't make out what.”

“Air spirit,” Trixie said, “Keeping watch on the ward around the facility. I took care of it, and we probably have anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour before the mage who summoned and bound that spirit realizes its gone.”

“Then its time for us to move,” said Lyra, “Carrot Top, you stay here and secure our exit route. Raindrops, Cheerilee, you two take point, I’ll bring up the rear, Trixie and Ditzy sandwiched between. Clear?”

There were nods from all around, and Trixie was about to ask if they really needed her to go in there, but then her words were silenced by the sound of a distant hissing sound that made her look up.

“The drek?” asked Carrot Top, her eyes going glassy as she entered one of her drones, then her mouth gaped, “Oh jack right into my plothole! Everypony down!”

None of the rest of the team questioned it, and Trixie was left confused and gaping on her own as something passed overhead and hit the area with a pressure wave strong enough to blow Trixie off the ridgeling and go rolling down into the tall grass. Dazed and bruised, spitting dirt out of her mouth, Trixie rose her head to see what had caused the pressure wave was a low flying VTOL. It was a sleek, matte black magi-tech vehicle shaped like a bird of prey, wings outspread, engines of screaming blue arcane energy causing the grass to ripple like waves on the ocean.

It flew right for the Aurora Heavy Industries research facility... and opened fire with a swarm of missiles and heavy autocannon fire that blew apart one of the outlying domed buildings in a screeching ball of torn metal and fire. Trixie watched in awe as a hatch opened on the side of the vehicle and three forms emerged.

One was a pegasus, all in black, but with a wild short gut orange mane, leaving a streak of orange and blue in her wake like a band of lightning. Another was the larger yet somehow sleeker form of a griffin, also in black, but clearly full body armor, and carrying a pair of thin, shining swords in her grip that Trixie could only imagine were monoblades. The third form wasn’t winged, instead it was a giant, bulky bipedal form that jumped from the VTOL as it passed over the wall and landed on top of it with a crushing sound of concrete breaking.

Even at this distance Trixie could hear the dark blue minotaur shout as he raised a large rotary shotgun into the air, firing off a burst that still couldn’t drown out his deep graveling, exceedingly masculine baritone, “Iron Will’s the name, stealin’ your creds my game! You corporate weenies try ta block, you’ll see how hard my team rocks!”

Trixie adjusted her AR glasses on her nose, and said into the teams comlinks, “Trixie thinks things have just become complicated.”

She almost shivered when she saw Raindrops, sliding down the ridge line to join her in the tall grass, unstrap her massive machine gun and chamber its rounds with a heavy metallic *ka-chunk*, “Or they just got a whole lot simpler.”

Trixie could already hear the sound of gunfire from the facility as the rest of the team joined them down in the grass, save for Carrot Top who remained up top; presumably to use her drones to maintain watch and to secure a route of egress for them.

Lyra’s eyes were hard, narrow, as she hefted her sniper rifle and started for the facility, “Plan hasn't changed. Just seems like we have competition. We get in, get the mare we’re there for, get out, and try to do it without things escalating more than they already have.”

“Even if they do,” said Cheerilee as she smoothly affixed her own sleek machine pistol to a mount on her foreleg, “I we can smooth things over with some proper negotiations with our fellow runners.”

“You mean...shoot them a lot, right?” asked Ditzy, not really hiding her nervousness and distaste.

“If need be,” said Lyra, “They might be here for a completely different reason than us. Let’s get in first, worry about dealing with these extra complications if we have to.”

With that the team seemed settled and Trixie, with no further comment nor any chance to really suggest that perhaps she should stay behind with Carrot Top, the ponies galloped off towards the A.H.I facility. Trixie, with a sigh, and a worried look at the guns strapped to her own flanks, went to follow. She just kept telling herself to remember the bits. Twenty five thousand.

Suddenly twenty five thousand didn't seem like nearly enough.

Chapter 3: How it Goes Wrong

View Online

Chapter 3: How it Goes Wrong

Lyra Heartstrings knew she was breaking one of her fundamental rules of shadowrunning; when the job goes south, pull out. No amount of creds or hits to her rep was worth putting her team’s lives at unneeded risk. Sure, risk was part of the biz, but as the team’s leader the others trusted her to decide when the risk was worth the reward, and when it wasn’t.

Right now she was all too aware she was tilting over the line of ‘acceptable risk’ and into ‘getting your friends geeked’ territory. This run against A.H.I was going to be a tough one to begin with, but with a rival team of runners on site shooting the place up with zero subtlety, calling down who knew what kinds of heavily armed backup down on the site, things just got far dicier. Lyra and her team would need to get in and out fast, avoid getting shot to pieces themselves, and be clear before A.H.I could bring in reinforcements. Her knowledge of corporate security procedures told her they had ten minutes, tops, before whatever alarms that were going off here got swarms of additional security screaming in on VTOLs.

So far none of her team had questioned her on why they were pushing forward, instead of aborting the run. That was for the best, because she wasn’t sure how well she could explain herself on the fly, and wouldn’t have tired even if pressed. She had to do this, and just hoped her team could understand why, when the time came.

The sound of the unmarked VTOL that had dropped off the other runner team could still be heard, circling nearby. Over the high whine of the VTOL’s engines Lyra heard the rough, rhythmic bark of heavy gunfire; probably that minotaur’s rotary shotgun if she was guessing right. That sound was joined soon by the lighter sporadic popcorn cracks of sub-machine guns and pistols. The A.H.I facility’s security was fighting back. Lyra hoped she and her team would be able to take advantage of the confusion.

Cheerilee was first to reach the wall, the magenta mare whipping out a small black device that she aimed upward. With a soft puff of air that only Lyra probably heard the device fired a hook trailing a black silk rope. The hook attached to the top of the wall as the rest of the team stacked up against the wall. Trixie gave the rope a look as if to say, ‘Seriously?’, her breathing erratic, eyes wide, and with an expression that suggested she was seriously reconsidering her reasons for being here. Lyra felt a jolt of guilt but quickly shoved it aside. Trixie knew the job could be dangerous. Lyra wanted to have faith the other unicorn mare could hold up.

“Ditzy, we clear?” asked Lyra.

Ditzy, her wall-eyed look staring off into cyberspace, gave a smile and a fast nod, “Wall had some nasty surprises but I’ve shut them down; no electrocutions for us today! Camera’s are down too, at least for the courtyard. Haven’t been spotted yet but they’ve got a spider in the web looking for me.”

Spider, hacker slang for their corporate counterparts who specialized in system security. While Lyra and the others fought their battle physically, and Trixie would be their counter to threats of the astral plane, it would be Ditzy who’d fight a war of cat and mouse across a digital battlefield, with programs being her guns and the system’ ICE being her foes, and the corporate hacker directing them. There wasn’t a shadowrunner team out there that didn’t at least have a competent hacker on standby, and Ditzy had proved herself as being more than merely competent. Lyra knew she could trust Ditzy to take care of her end of things.

“Alright,” she said, “Raindrops and I will go over first. Cheerilee, help Trixie up next. Ditzy, you’re last. We make for the main facility the second we’re over; no side tracking, no slowing down. Only shoot if you have to, we’re not here to leave bodies.”

“B-bodies?” Trixie gulped, eyes widening slightly.

Raindrops rolled her eyes, already flying up the wall, “These things don’t shoot candy,” she said while hefting her machine gun.

Lyra sighed, sliding over and putting a hoof on Trixie’s leg, “Yours is loaded with gel rounds. Didn’t think you’d want to worry about hurting anypony.”

Trixie gave her gun a look, expression slightly queasy, then looked to Lyra, “But... the rest of you aren’t?”

Ditzy smiled, raising her taser, “I use this!”

Cheerilee sighed, hefting her own compact machine pistol, “Modern armor is too effective against most non-lethal ordinance. We carry some, just in case, but we always start out packing live rounds. Don’t sweat it, though, Trixie, we tend to only aim for legs. Mostly. Raindrops, kind of not set up for precision shooting. Which reminds me, Raindrops, please try not to go full-auto with that cannon of yours this time! Do you have any idea how difficult it is to wash blood out of a mane!?”

“...Yes,” said Raindrops with a thin scowl, but flicked a switch on her machine gun that Lyra knew would set it to three-round bursts rather than full-auto.

~As for me, I prefer to keep my babies loaded with ammo for every occasion!~, said Carrot Top’s cheerful voice over the AR link shared between all of the team. A small roto-drone, no larger than a basketball, floated by Trixie.

“CT, you holding up alright?” asked Lyra.

~Right as fresh carrots Lyra. Running my babies quiet, and no sign anypony’s caught my signal. I’m sending this medi-drone with you guys for a little backup. Got Rabbit Buster on standby, and our perimeter is as secure as I can make it. Stay frosty in there, ‘kay?~

“We’ll be good,” Lyra said, then looked at everypony, “Right, up and over.”

Trixie controlled her breathing and reminded herself she was a professional. Not a professional like these girls were, technically, but she wasn’t a stranger to dangerous situations. She’d been accosted by muggers, and gangers, and even dealt with a few supernatural critters during her short and rocky career as a private investigator. Of course there was a world of difference between those occasional scrapes and what she was about to do; break into a heavily guarded corporate research facility that was already under fire by another team of heavily armed and cybered-up shadowrunners... but this was nothing a pony of Trixie’s talent shouldn’t be able to handle.

Lyra and Raindrops went up first, the pegasus flying right over the wall while Lyra climbed the synth-rope Cheerilee had deployed with remarkable agility, making the ascent look as natural as walking up a set of stairs. Trixie was assisted by Cheerilee, who showed her how to properly wrap her hoof around the synth-rope and brace her hindlegs to climb up the wall. Trixie had trouble with it, her back legs burning before she got even halfway up, but she grit her teeth and pushed on through, determined not to slow the team down. At the top of the wall she passed by what looked to be a set of electrical wires that had already been cut, probably by Raindrops. She hesitated a moment at seeing the drop down to the compound floor, but another rope had already been set up and the descent wasn’t as tough as the ascent had been. Only now, as she climbed down, she could clearly see the carnage already wrecked on the AHI compound and hear the still ongoing firefight, and her nerves started to rattle at the sound of pony’s shouting, and screaming in pain.

Two of the small dome shaped buildings nearby were cracked open like eggs from the VTOLs missile barrage, and flames and smoke poured forth in billowing gouts. Trixie could see the front of the main facility, where already a few dozen ponies in red and black security barding were piled around various pillars and columns that lined the overhang of the first floor of the building. The cover was scant against what was a relentless barrage of fire from the hulking minotaur that seemed to shrug off return fire like a knot of stone in a river. The security ponies weren’t lightly armed by any means, many of them wielding assault rifles and heavy pistols in levitation fields or gripped with their forehooves. That giant dark blue minotaur just didn’t seem to give a drek about the heavy fire pouring over him, his barrel chest seeming to shrug off the slugs as only a heavily cyber augmented individual can.

“Iron Will says you try to bring on the pain; I hit back like a train!” the minotaur, Iron Will apparently, roared and aimed his massive many barreled weapon at the security forces.

The minotaur’s rotary shotgun blasted chunks of concrete and steel out from the security pony’s cover, and Trixie felt sick to her stomach as one mare was sent spinning away with an arm sheared clean off by the flechet storm, her piercing scream making Trixie shiver to her very bones.

What in Luna’s shiny tail-hole am I doing here!? No amount of credits is worth this! Trixie nearly panicked, but Cheerilee was already descending above her and she couldn’t just go back. Closing her eyes and breathing hard, Trixie concentrated on just getting to the ground.

Raindrops and Lyra had taken cover by one of the intact domed buildings that was just a short distance from the wall and Lyra waved Trixie over the moment she hit the ground. Trixie came over with an unsteady trot, wincing as she saw the griffin from the rival team dive-bomb a AHI security mare who was pulling out a grenade launcher. Monoblade’s flashed and Trixie gulped, trying to ignore how easily armor had parted under those blade’s edge, and sent a silent prayer that the security pony hadn’t felt much pain before... coming apart.

If we have to fight those maniacs, what am I going to do!?, she thought, but glancing at her own team, she wondered how much she needed to worry. They did outnumber the other team two to one.

“Right,” said Lyra, now that Ditzy flew over the wall and landed with the rest of the group, “Make for this entrance,” a pair of side doors along the south end of the facility lit up in Trixie’s AR display, “Fast. Ditzy, I want those doors cracked before we hit them.”

“Done and done,” Ditzy chirped with a smile.

Raindrops was frowning at the carnage at the front of the facility, “Sloppy work out there. Those idiots are trying to bash through the entire security force here.”

“Looks like they’re succeeding,” said Trixie.

“Only in tying themselves up out front. Amateurish. Childish,” Raindrops growled, “Gangers and slot-heads can act this way, but teams like that are what give shadowrunner’s a bad rep!”

Cheerilee was giving the scene a scrutinizing gaze herself, rubbing a hoof to her chin, “I think I may have heard of this group, now that I’m getting a good look at them. Iron Will, that’s ringing a few bells upstairs.”

“If its important, feel free to tell us,” said Lyra curtly, “But we got to move. Everypony stick close. Go!”

With that they were off and Trixie could only concentrating on taking one breath after the other as she galloped alongside her fellow teammates. The few dozen yards to the main facility’s side door felt like miles to her, stretching out and making every second feel excruciatingly long to Trixie. Any second she expected to feel the pain of a gunshot blasted through her all but unarmored body, and fear lent strength to her tired hooves.

When a gruff, feminine voice filled with attitude called out, Trixie nearly felt her heart jump into her throat.

“Hey, hey, hey! Now where’re you dweebs going? Wasn’t expecting any extra rats scurrying around here.”

It was the griffin from the other team, who had banked up around the roof and been preparing to dive down onto the regrouping security forces, but had spotted Lyra’s team running across the open area. The griffin had purple shades to the tips of her feathers, and around her bright yellow eyes, eyes that narrowed at the team of shadowrunner ponies that she clearly hadn’t expected to see. She dove down with remarkable speed, her swings snapping in against her side until she was at ground level, upon which they snapped back open to send her into a sharp turn that took her in front of the team’s path, Lyra in the lead.

“Don’t know who you ponies are, but this is our gig, so how ‘bout you all buzz off!?”

Lyra didn’t even slow her stride, and flying beside her Raindrops lined up her machine gun. The griffin spat, bringing her sword to bear. Trixie’s teeth rattled as Raindrop’s machine gun let loose with a thunderous three round burst. The griffin, with speed that couldn’t be natural, twisted in the air and flowed around the bright orange tracer rounds that stitched through the air. Charging in, the griffin made for Raindrops, angling in from above to swipe at the jasmine pegasus’ head. Raindrops jerked back, not a fast flier, but with powerful wings that could easily shift her momentum in flight, pulling her up short of where she would’ve been. The griffin’s monoblades sliced through thin air and Raindrops held her machine gun aloft with one hoof, raising another and snapping one of her large caliber semi-automatic pistols from its sheath and firing off a quick triple tap of shots. The griffin growled, throwing herself to the side, spinning as one round caught her side, but the thick black padded body armor she wore seemed to absorb the blow.

“Yo, G, you starting a party over here without us!?” cried another female voice, and Trixie looked up to see the very light blue pegasus with the orange and yellow toned mane streaking in away from the firefight with the security guards and head for them.

“Oh, yeah, a party,” drawled the griffin with sarcasm gushing in her voice, “How about you try getting your slowpoke flank over here to give me a hand!?”

“Ya mean hoof, right? Who’re you’re buds, anyway?” asked the pegasus as she did a flyby of the team, bringing up a pair of blocky SMGs in her hoofs with red laser sights that danced over the team. Trixie yelped as she saw one of those red lines cross over her and heard the rapid staccato burst of fire as the pegasus opened fire.She felt something hit her on the side, pushing her into a roll as the sound of more gunfire from all around made her flinch. However, aside from losing a bit of breath, she was unharmed. Blinking, Trixie looked up to see Cheerilee had tackled her out of the line of fire, and the magenta mare was returning fire with her machine pistol. The enemy pegasus zipped about with insane speed, leaving that blue and yellow lightning bolt trail as she went.

“Hit?” asked Cheeerilee as she emptied her clip, and swifly reloaded while pulling Trixie up.

“N-no... no, I’m fine.”

“Good, back to running, unless you want to be our rear guard,” Cheerilee said with a wink. Trixie gave the other mare an incredulous look, but spotted the SMG wielding pegasus coming around for another pass and decided that her time and energy would be better spent running. She didn’t even consider trying to cast a spell, unicorn or mage based. There just wasn’t enough time, and any spellcasting would mark her out as a target. Trixie prefered to get the drop on her opponents. This kind of open fight was not playing to her strengths.

As she ran for the doors she caught sight of Raindrops and the griffin dueling it out in the air, the griffin constantly trying to close the distance on the slower flier to get in range with her blades, and Raindrops just staying ahead and returning fire, only to have trouble hitting the much more speedy and nimble griffin.

“Slippery for such a slow-flank piece of drek,” said the griffin as she swung with both blades in a scissors cut that took a little of Raindrops’ mane off.

Raindrops’ face was a cold steel mask as she rolled upside down and flew close to the ground, letting loose with a rattling stream of gunfire that forced the griffin and the other pegasus alike to have to fall back. Raindrops was now taking up the rear of the group, with Lyra having already reached the doors along with Cheerilee, Trixie, and Ditzy.

“Ditzy. Doors,” said Lyra, lining up a shot with her sniper rifle, aiming for the other team’s pegasus, her breathing slow and calm. With a surprisingly subdued sound the rifle let out a dry, muffled ‘Pfft’ and Trixie winced as she saw the orange maned pegasus jerk in the air. There was no spray of blood or anything to indicate a fatal hit, but the pegasus was clearly rocked by something, as she staggered in the air and halted the attack run she’d been lining up on those at the door.

“Got it, welcome to Aurora Heavy Industries Research Facility: Everfree Site,” Ditzy said and made an ‘after you’ gesture as the metal doors hissed open. Trixie hadn’t seen the hacker do anything, but that was to be expected, given the gray pegasus was doing all her work in AR. Trixie was a little impressed. To hack systems effectively many hackers tended to dive into full VR, but Ditzy was handling things with just the Augmented Reality icons that allowed her to move her body while hacking.

Lyra waved Cheerilee, Ditzy, and Trixie in first, and Trixie didn’t hesitate to rush through the doors, instantly feeling better to have the sterile white washed walls of the small hallway they entered surround her. Raindrops came in next, with Lyra coming in last alongside Carrot Top’s little rotor-drone. The doors sealed shut behind them and Ditzy narrowed her eyes in concentration for a second before grinning, “Locks scrambled. Ought to hold them for a bit if they try to follow.”

“You losing your edge Lyra?” asked Raindrops, “Did that pegasus actually dodge a shot from you?”

Lyra gave Raindrops a sidelong look as she racked the bolt on her rifle, “Just gave her a warning graze. We’re not here to rack up bodies Raindrops. I’d rather get this done bloodless if we can... a sentiment our rivals clearly aren’t sharing.”

~I don’t get it, why are they causing such havoc out there anyway. It’s completely outside normal runner SOP to hit a facility like this. It’s called shadowrunning for a reason.~, said Carrot Top over the AR com-link, and Trixie didn’t envy the earth pony having to still be outside and watching the firefight.

“It could be they’re getting paid to make a scene,” mused Raindrops with a shrug, “Not like the shadows don’t got plenty of jerks who’ll go in guns blazing for the right price.”

“I don’t know,” said Cheerilee, brow furrowed, “More I think about it, the more I’m sure. I remember Iron Will from my early days hitting the shadows up in the Hoofington Metroplex. Taur with a serious rep for destruction, even back then. Hmm... might’ve actually done a run or two with him, now that I think of it, but can’t be sure... heheh.”

“Can’t be sure?” asked Raindrops.

“Yeah, well, who didn’t get into a lot of drugs and alcohol during that phase?” said the magenta mare with a waving hoof, “I don’t remember every gun-totting minotaur I may or may not have had a sordid affair with while committing grand larceny for fun and profit?”

Raindrops hung her head with a groan and Lyra gave Cheerilee a level look, “Can you tell us anything concrete?”

Cheerilee shrugged, “Expect what you’ve seen; lots of testosterone and firepower. He’ll blast a path through this place, but he’ll grandstand a lot, and take his time to smell the smoke and gunpowder. We got some time to get in and do what we need to do. We run into him, well, I’d rather run than fight. I’m not geared for rotary shotguns with what looks like high-velocity flechette rounds that’d shred even Rains toughened hide.”

Lyra nodded while Raindrops muttered, “I can take him.”

Meanwhile Ditzy was looking down the hallway, frowning, and Trixie was the first to speak up, asking, “Something wrong?”

“Weeeeel, some systems I had shut down are turning back on, and I got lots of Sniffer ICE floating around my tail. I think the systems local Spider is getting onto me. I might have to do a full dive before long. Might want to find a nice cubby hole to take care of the grid end of things while you fleshy types run around and grab our package.”

“You got a spot in mind?” asked Lyra.

Ditzy nodded, and in an instant Trixie noticed a complex three dimensional map of the facility scroll across her AR shade’s display, and imagined the same was happening with the others.

“Yeah, I’ll hole up in this utility room on the main floor, just two hallways down,” a green muffin popped into being inside the room in question, “I’ll keep the facility systems in check from there and link up with you guys once we figure our route of egress after you snatch our package. As for where that is, main lab is accessed by an elevator here,” a bright yellow muffin appeared by an elevator shaft along with a line that showed a route from where they were to that location, “Lab is on the second floor.”

“Right, let’s move then. Trixie, you sensing anything on the astral front?”

Trixie jumped a bit at Lyra’s question and quickly shifted her sight to the astral plane, gazing over the mostly faded blue and dead hallway, “No... nothing yet. Could be all their magic defenses were on the perimeter. But there is another mage here, or at least some kind of magic user. There would have to be if they summoned an Air spirit. If they show up, rest assured I will handle it.”

I hope. Trixie added silently. She was a tad intimidated at the prospect of battling another mage, but she found she liked the notion that the team was relying on her for this. This wasn’t the kind of stage she would’ve prefered to stand on, but she’d do her level best to rise to the challenge. Or at least make it look like she knew what she was doing.

The team set out down the hallways of the A.H.I facility, following the route Ditzy had set out on the map. Ditzy herself split up from them to head for her hidey hole, while the rest of them made their way towards the elevator that’d take them to the lab. Trixie found it a little odd that she wasn’t seeing any alarm icons popping up on her AR display from the facility, but if their comlinks weren’t being challenged by the local system then she imagined they had Ditzy to thank for it. Chances were the systems of the building were ignoring the unidentified comlinks, perhaps their signals being masked, or otherwise given false passcodes to let them through. Trixie found she could still access local AR icons, and knew they were passing by the first floor maintenance and employee lounge area from the floating icons identifying rooms helpfully for them.

They encountered no security forces through the first few sets of doors they passed, in all likelihood the majority of the security teams engaged with Iron Will’s team outside. Coming past a cafeteria area the team had to pause as a trio of ponies in plain office clothes were arguing in the hallway over whether to go try fleeing the building, or to just take shelter in their offices. Raindrops and Lyra both moved fast to knock these ponies unconscious with swift, smooth knocks to the back of the head, after which Trixie was enlisted to help drag the unconscious ponies into a nearby set of restroom across from the cafeteria.

“Aside from the mess outside, things are going surprisingly smooth,” muttered Raindrops.

“Why don’t you sound happier about this?” asked Trixie, against her better judgement.

Much as Trixie expected the pegasus glared at her and said, “Because that generally means something is about to get slotted up.”

As if Raindrops’ words had acted as a summons there was the sound of pounding hooves on tiles from outside the restroom and Trixie heard a stallion’s voice shout, “Lay down your weapons and lay face down on the ground, now!”

The voice came from outside the restroom, and Trixie heard Cheerilee’s coy reply, “Do you want me to ‘spread ‘em’ too, boys? Or is that in poor taste?”

Lyra gave Trixie a look that seemed to say ‘stay back’ and then she and Raindrops went charging out into the hallway. Trixie heard gunfire and shouts of surprise, and for a second or two hesitated there in the restroom, wondering if she should stay put or try going out to help. Against her better judgement she decided to take a peek, using her horn to weave a unicorn spell of invisibility around herself as she did so. She had to jerk her head back almost instantly as bullets ricocheted across the doorway, spraying chips of plaster and tile across her face.

Cheerilee had dove into the cafeteria doorway and was exchanging fire with a quartet of security guards who had come around the bend of the hallway they’d been heading down to reach the elevator. The magenta mare move with smooth precision, spraying rounds from her machine pistol at the guards taking cover at what looked to be a four-way junction ahead, and pulling back before return fire could do more than chew up the wall next to her.

Lyra had taken up a position by a marble vase in the hallway, standing at a strange angle on her hindlegs as she worked the bolt on her sniper rifle with her hooves, and gripped the firing bit with her mouth. Bullets flew around her, but Lyra moved with soft, subtle, small movements of her lithe body that let the rounds slip by by centimeters. As one security pony poked his body around his cover and aimed his assault rifle, Lyra’s rifle made its oddly quiet ‘pfft’ sound and the rifle flew out of the stallion’s grip. A follow up shot caught the stallion in his hindleg and sent him tumbling to the ground with a spray of red cating the white tiled floor.

Raindrops was hovering in the air, filling up most of the hallway and strafing left and right with her machine gun. She’d clearly switched to full-auto and the weapon was belting out a steady stream of fire that kept most of the security ponies ahead keeping their heads down. What few return bursts went the pegasus’ way either grazed her armor, or sparked off her heavy cybernetic limbs with little visible effect.

Trixie licked her dry lips. She didn’t really want to wait for this firefight to resolve. She didn’t want to wait for those crazy rival shadowrunners to show up behind them and make things complicated. She certainly didn’t want a stray bullet to find its way to her very pretty and well maintained face. She liked living, in general, and was wondering just what insanity possessed her to agree to come with Lyra on this job. Now, now Trixie wanted things to go smooth, and for the shooting to stop.

She didn’t know any unicorn spells that would do the trick, but fortunately she was an Awakened mage and had other tricks up her proverbial sleeve. Taking a deep breath and concentrating she focused on the arcane gestures and words she’d need to perform. Being invisible didn’t change anything, the types of magic so separate she could maintain her invisibility with her horn while drawing upon the astral plane with equal ease.

Words of power flowed from her lips, ritualized and hermetic lingo that through will and belief called to the mana of the astral plane, magic new and fresh in Equestria for only seven decades yet integrated into every facet of what was now the Awakened Equestria; the Sixth World. Her left hoof moved, forming symbols in the air with patterns of light that formed from mana, and acted as conduits for the energy pulling through Trixie’s body, both physical and astral, and shaping into the form of a magic spell.

Trixie let loose with the spell, sending a trail of dancing blue and green sparks flying through the air to burst among the security guards like little specks of star dust. Of the four, two of them shook their heads, groggy, and one fell over entirely, thoroughly unconscious. The others were disoriented enough that the rest of the team had an opening to take advantage of. All three mares charged forward, each taking a security pony apiece. Lyra was there first, bursting across the distance in an eye-blink, and slamming her guard with a two hoofed punch to the barrel that lifted the poor stallion bodily off the ground and slammed him hard into the opposite wall; out cold before he slowly slid to the floor. Raindrops twisted in the air and struck her opponent with a nasty axle kick that broke the security mare’s gun and her jaw, sending the poor mare sprawling to the ground like a rag doll. Cheerilee was... gentler, with her target, sliding up to them and flipping them head over tail with a solid body throw, followed by a choke hold that slowly put the stallion out like a light.

Trixie just slowly trotted up and let her invisibility drop. The others looked at her and Lyra smiled slightly, giving Trixie a nod, “That bit of spellwork was you I’m assuming.”

“Sleep spell,” Trixie confirmed, “Great for extricating oneself from a bar room brawl or keeping overly friendly alley dwellers from getting too rambunctious. Might not put somepony out instantly, but at the very least it’ll make them feel like they haven’t slept in days.”

“Nice,” said Cheerilee, stretching her hooves and giving one of the unconscious guards a friendly pat on the cheek, “Lucky you, and here I was fearing I’d have to start playing all rough with you, and here our newbie spares me the trouble.”

Carrot Top’s roto-drone popped up out of the cafeteria, suddenly, Carrot Top’s voice cheerful over the comlinks.

~Everypony okay? No injuries?~

“Nah, but where were you? Could’ve used a little extra firepower just then,” said Raindrops, checking one of her cyber-legs, rubbing at one of the scuffs a bullet had creased in the metal.

~Looked like you guys had it! Don’t want to risk my little floating med-kit here, otherwise I won’t be able to patch you guys up if you get hurt.~

“C’mon, we need to move on. Listen,” said Lyra, and everypony tilted their ears, listening for whatever the mint unicorn was acting them to listen to. Trixie frowned, head tilting.

“I’m not hearing anything,” she said, then her body froze, “Uh-oh, I don’t hear anything.”

“Which means our friends outside are done with the security forces out there and are on their way in,” said Cheerilee with a sigh, “This’ll end well.”

“Move,” said Lyra, and as one the team got a move on, galloping along the hallways, rapidly turning right, then left down the junctions as they came, following Ditzy’s map. They passed shining office suites with angular new age decor, and blacked tinted windows showing large spaces of interlinked cubicles, but nothing that looked like a research lab. It seemed everything on the first floor was administration. Trixie found herself wondering just what this facility was really setup for. What were they researching? Why even build a place like this out in the Everfree?

She imagined answers would be forthcoming soon, as the team came across the bright bank of doors that was no doubt the elevators. There was a soft ping of sound and the doors opened for them before they hit the buttons. Trixie suppressed a small chuckle at the icon of a grinning muffin that waved at them from the open doors. Ditzy, whatever problems she might have been having of her own in cyberspace, still had her team’s back.

Inside the elevator they had a second to catch their breath, and Trixie took a moment to glance at Lyra, “Is it always like this?”

Lyra’s gold eyes remained focused ahead on the elevator doors, her body tense, but her voice was calm enough, “Not always, but... most the time, yeah.”

“Why do it? If I’m remembering right, weren’t you going for a degree in Musical Arts, back in college?” asked Trixie, just not able to reconcile her fuzzy memories of the unicorn she knew back at school with the mare beside her. Lyra made a small, barely perceptible shake of her head.

“A lot can change, Trixie. Not just over time, but in an instant. In one instant... everything in your life can change.”

“Not polite, to ask that kind of question, newbie,” said Raindrops.

“Yeah, because you’re so obsessed with politeness,” sniped Trixie with a small huff, and gulped as she saw the pegasus mare slowly turn towards her, those eyes shining with malice. A spell was halfway to Trixie’s lip before the situation was diffused by the soft chime of the elevator doors opening.

The doors opened onto a steel balcony that wrapped around a huge lowered chamber. A single, spanning laboratory was filled to the brim with stations loaded with arcano-tech devices and lab equipment. The center of the room was dominated by a large spherical device about four or five pony-lengths wide, suspended in the air over a circular platform that Trixie recognized as a containing multiple layers of arcane script that formed a protection barrier.

As the four mares and one remote controlled roto-drone made their way onto the walkway surrounding the lab nearly a dozen ponies looked up at them from the lab below, all of them in white lab coats. These ponies looked like they’d been hurriedly grabbing equipment and papers, shoving them into cases, probably in preparation to evacuate. Before anything could be said, a gunshot rang out and Trixie yelped as she felt a sharp pain tear through her right hindleg.

There were security guards here as well, half a dozen watching the scientists from various positions along the surrounding walkway, and they’d opened fire the instant they caught sight of the team. Trixie hit the steel floor, hooves going to the hole in her leg that was already bleeding profusely and crying out in pain as Lyra, Raindrops, and Cheerilee burst into action around her.

In a single bound Raindrops went to the air and flew over the lab, letting loose with a thorough cloud of suppression fire that sent guards scrambling for cover. Lyra took a deep breath and slung her sniper rifle, galloping with breakneck speed down and around the left side of the balcony, closing the distance to the guards at a ridiculous pace. Cheerilee took cover at the railing of the walkway near Trixie, firing over the top, but mostly keeping her head down.

“Stay still there, hun, and do try to put a lid on the screaming,” said Cheerilee with a sympathetic smile, “You’re going to just draw more fire on us.”

“Grraaaah!” Trixie said, providing her own opinion on the matter. She’d been hurt before in her life, but this was her first time being shot. Not an experience she’s ever recommend to anypony. Blinding pain plus horrifying fear. Just not a fun time. Also, was it supposed to bleed this much!? Some part of her was telling her to calm down, breath, and try not to go into shock, because she was totally going into shock, and spellcasting, not something that worked well while in shock. The other part of her mind was in agreement with her mouth; screaming.

~I got ya, don’t worry. Carrot Top’s Mechanical Medical Miracle is here to save the day!~

Carrot Top’s roto-drone floated down around Trixie, its small turbine engines creating a constant soft buzzing sound as it started sweeping Trixie’s body with a small green light. With smooth movement the drone hovered over the leg wound and lowered towards it, somewhat to Trixie’s horror because, well, to be honest she didn’t exactly trust some machine built by a mare in a garage to treat severe bullet trauma. Trixie was really a mare who figured this kind of thing should be left to trained medical professionals. She didn’t Carrot Top, nor her whacky arcane-tech drone, had their licence to practice... but then again she didn’t have much choice in the matter. As Trixie watched, the drone went to work.

The bottom of the drone opened up with various tools of dubious looking nature, and Trixie would’ve imagined what was about to happen to her would be even more painful than the initial shot, but a syringe injected something into her and in seconds Trixie found herself not only not in pain, but generally feeling... rather good about herself, life, and the situation in the general.

She watched Raindrops beat a guard over the head with her machine gun and thought to herself that the pegasus mare, for all her surliness, had a very nice mane. And hooves, what’s up with those? How do ponies even hold things with them. And why does Trixie not have her hat and cape? She ought to have brought them, and then she could show all these ponies her magic show that she never got around to taking on the road. Then they’d be all happy and not so loud and screaming. And Lyra sure could bend. And bending apparently led to lots and lots of hitting. Poor guards, unable to hit bendy Lyra, and getting tossed around like pillows at a slumber party. Trixie never had a slumber party before but she was pretty sure pillow fights were involve-

“OW!” Trixie blinked as pain returned, and with it lucidity, and she glared at the drone as it floated away from her now bandaged leg.

~Sorry, sorry. Flushed the pain meds once we got the wound sutured up, and just added some localized anthestic. Need you functioning for magic stuff and all. Should be able to walk and move now. Threw some synth-skin over there, and the muscle tissue is mostly reconnected. I can finish up proper once the job’s done but that’ll hold you for now.~

Carrot Top’s digitized voice sounded apologetic, and Trixie experimentally moved her leg, surprised at its general lack of pain, at least in comparison to just moments ago.

“I... I think this’ll do. Thank you.”

“Wish we’d gotten warning about these guards being here,” said Cheerilee as Raindrops swooped in and body slammed the last remaining guard, “Has anypony heard from Ditzy since the elevator? I can’t contact her.”

Lyra spoke quickly over the team’s comlink, “Ditzy? Respond... blast it all, she must have gone into full dive. Raindrops, let’s secure the package. Cheerilee, keep the elevator covered. Trixie, you good?”

“More or less.”

“Be on the watch for any magic defenses,” the mint unicorn said as she and Raindrops descended into the lab space where the various researchers had either taken cover during the fight or just cowered in the open.

Trixie found a set of stairs leading down and joined Lyra and Raindrops, letting her view slip into the astral plane. Some of the lab stations appeared to be researching objects of an Awakened origin... in fact most of them were. Trixie saw old stone tablets, slabs of what might have been ancient masonry, strange jars, fetishes, a blade or two, and all manner of other artifacts, all being subjected to one degree or another to modern arcane research techniques.

Most the objects radiated power of the astral plane, and Trixie felt a strong urge to indulge in some looting. However any of these objects were probably covered in spells to track or otherwise protect against just that kind of tampering, at least without the right magical keys and spells to counter that. Trixie suppressed her inner thief and trotted, gingerly due to her leg, to where Lyra and Raindrops had corralled the researchers into a cluster.

Trixie cocked her head as she noticed Lyra was looking particularly... intense.

“We’re here for the mare in charge of this laboratory,” Lyra said, “Where is she?”

“You d-don’t scare us, criminal!” said one of the scientists, a mousy looking orange mare with a poofy blue mane, “Our team leader isn’t here! She’s on vacation.”

“Drops, on the count of tree, start breaking somepony’s limbs. I don’t care which.”

Trixie blinked, “Isn’t that a little extreme?”

Lyra didn’t look Trixie’s way, but her tail flicked about in a sense of clear irritation that wasn’t present in her otherwise stone cold, still features as she began to count, “One... two... thr-”

“There is no need for that,” said a feminine, cultured voice from around the side of the spherical object in the middle of the room. A pony trotted around into view, having apparently been hiding back there, “I think we can resolve this without any further barbarity... wait... Lyra?”

The pony in question wore a similar white laboratory coat as the other researchers, though she wore it fully buttoned up and with great poise and a sense of cleanliness. She was a gray mare, with a dark mane and tail that Trixie had to admit were impeccably kept. Violet eyes looked at Lyra with clear recognition and surprise, the mare’s voice still with that cultured tone that Trixie now recognized as pure high-society Canterlot, but now also filled with shock and wonder.

“Lyra? That is you isn’t it, what are you doing-”

The mare didn’t get to finish, as Lyra was on her in a flash. Trixie blinked, Raindrops just sort of dropping her jaw in confusion and surprise. Lyra was hugging the gray mare, her cool, calm demeanor suddenly shattered as she wrapped her forehooves around the confused looking scientists. Trixie could have sworn she heard Lyra sob a little bit before she spoke.

“Octy... Luna’s tears, it is you. I wasn’t sure. Couldn’t be sure, but the description in the job, it thought maybe it... are you okay? You’re not hurt? Don’t worry, I’m getting you out of here.”

The gray mare, Octy (?), hugged Lyra back, though more in bemused confusion than anything else as she looked at Trixie, and Raindrops with a shrewd look before addressing Lyra.

“Lyra, dear, what are you going on about? Get me out of here? Lyra, you’ve broken into an Aurora Heavy Industries research lab, injured guards, destroyed property... what is this all about? You’re supposed to be in Canterlot, pursuing a musical career.”

Lyra was now the one sporting a confused look, looking at the mare in front of her with utter bewilderment, “What...? Octavia, that’s... you and Bon Bon... you both went missing two years ago!”

“Missing? I never went missing,” said Octavia, putting a hoof on Lyra’s shoulder, “Lyra, I’ve been in contact with you through messages and trid-calls for all these past two years. I took a job with Aurora Heavy Industries to assist in researching sound harmonics, to help develop my musical resonance theory. You’re... you’re still with Bon Bon, right? I saw pictures of the two of you, you sent them to me, just prior to the engagement!”

Lyra shook her head, and a slow, horrified look was crossing over her face, “That’s impossible. Trixie, Trixie I need you over here, now!”

“Lyra, who is this mare? I demand to know what is happening! You’ve hurt friends of mine, and are acting ridiculous! You cant-”

Octavia was cut off by Lyra putting a hoof up and Trixie trotted over. Raindrops was keeping watch on the other researchers, and Cheerilee was still watching the elevators, calling over to them, “I don’t know what drama is happening down there but you might want to hurry up! I still can’t contact Ditzy and I’m starting to feel like a young mare at her first time at the bar, with her tail hiked up for all the boys to see. I.E, exposed.”

Trixie flushed that mental image quickly and approached Lyra and Octavia, giving Lyra a questioning look, “What do you want me to do, exactly?”

“I don’t know, just... scan her. Look her over. Tell me if something’s wrong. There’s no way Octavia could have been in touch with me for two years, because her, and another close friend, went missing without a trace back then.”

“And I’m telling you that’s impossible, Lyra. I’ve been in touch with you the entire time!”

“Then why did I abandoned everything in my life and spend the past two years running the shadows to find you two!?” shouted Lyra, body shaking.

Trixie gulped, wishing the shouting wasn’t taking place quite so close to her ears, and looked over Octavia in the astral plane. Immediately she noticed the bright glow coming off the mare, including several complex strings of energy around her heart and head, connected by a lattice word of spellcraft that Trixie, to her chagrin, couldn’t begin to decipher or figure out.

“Okay, well, first off, there are spells on her,” Trixie said.

“What spells?” asked Lyra.

“What spells!?” asked Octavia, louder.

“I... well I don’t know. I don’t recognize the patterns at all. I’d need time to really decipher any of it, but you’ve got spells on you, powerful ones. Also... um, do you know you’re a mage?”

Lyra rolled her eyes, “What? Octavia isn’t Awakened.”

“Of course I am Lyra,” said Octavia, “I told you this last year when it happened. I was called to by Owl. I’m a shaman. It’s been an interesting experience to adapt to, but Owl has helped guide my muse in developing my music and assist in my research.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Trixie, “Was that your Air spirit out there?”

Octavia nodded once, then frowned, a hard looking aimed at Trixie, “Yes. Was it you who destroyed my Air spirit!? You absolute brute! I’ve worked with that spirit all year on analyzing sound patterns and their effect on astral forms!”

“Guys?” said Cheerilee from the elevator.

“Hey!” said Trixie, still focused on Octavia, “I was just doing a job. I’m hardly a brute! In fact I used all sorts of finesse and skill to take that spirit out. It was elegant, and impressive, and certainly deserves more than a ‘brute’ tag!”

“Hmph, I doubt there was much ‘finesse’ involved with anything you do, you little blue trollop. Lyra, what are you doing with this creature?”

“Seriously, guys, might want to hurry this up,” Cheerilee continued to go unheard.

“Octavia, Trixie helped my team get in here. We wouldn’t have gotten past the outer defenses without here. Now I need you to just trust me a bit and don’t resist, we’re going to take you away from here,” said Lyra, putting a hoof on Octavia’s leg, but Octavia pulled away.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with your memory Lyra, but I’m certainly not going anywhere, even with you. I work here, and have no desire to leave. I... have to finish my work... its important... to finish work...”

“Something's definitely up with those spells, “ said Trixie, “I just saw them flare up.”

“Guys! Now!” yelled Cheerilee, finally getting everypony’s attention.

Trixie and the others looked over there just in time to see Cheerilee run from the elevator and leap over the side of the walkway and into the lab area, Carrot Top’s drone following her. The elevator doors chimed... then blasted open to the sound of a rotary shotgun. Trixie grimaced as she heard a loud, boisterous voice shout, “Nopony move, ‘cause Iron Will’s in the groove! Everypony stays down and there won’t be any need for somepony to be put down!”

“Oh, for the love of, will you stop rhyming!? What are you, a fraggin’ zebra!?”

“Quit whining, G, let’s just get this job done already.”

In short order a giant blue minotaur, a griffin, and a pegasus entered the scene, fresh from a bloodbath down below, armed to the teeth, and leaving Trixie with the distinct impression that her day was going to get a whole lot worse before it got better.

Chapter 4: How it Gets Tough

View Online

Chapter 4: How it Gets Tough

Trixie decided inside the span of a single look at the minotaur, Iron Will, that she didn’t want to be in the same zip code as him, let alone the same room. He radiated a combination of raw aggression and eager menace that set off all of Trixie’s danger senses almost instantly. In her brief and struggling private eye carrer Trixie had developed a feel for how dangerous a certain pony or other person might be. It told her when she could get away with bluffing a street thug, or when it was time to throw up an illusion and slip away before things got ugly.

Iron Will fell into the extreme end of the later category.

Unfortunately there was nowhere for Trixie go flee to, and she didn’t want to risk casting a spell for fear all she’d do is draw the minotaur’s attention, which for the moment hadn’t quite fixed on anypony in particular. He was instead surveying the room with his massive rotary shotgun held in one meaty fist, while his other hand, a metallic chrome monstrosity sporting a massive fixed blade that looked like someone had married a chainsaw to a katana and fed their bastard offspring steroids, was resting on his hip. His ready, commanding grin made him look like a king observing his realm, and the gleam in his eye suggested he was contemplating unpleasant fates for the subjects of that realm.

“Alright listen up kiddies!” he bellowed, slapping his massive rotary shotgun down into fists of chrome, leveling the barrels at the terrified lab staff, “Iron Will’s and his fun friends are here for some good old fashioned vandalism! Keep quiet, stay down, don’t cause any fuss, and you’ll come out of today with fewer holes blown through you than you’d otherwise get if you decide to be stupid.”

To either side of him Iron Will’s other team members took up positions, the teal pegasus with the orange mane heading left, and the blade wielding griffin to the right. It only took the minotaur a second to notice that, along with the cluster of frightened lab ponies, there were others in the room who clearly weren’t Aurora Heavy Industries personnel. Seeing Lyra’s team, the big minotaur frowned and looked left at the griffin.

“Hey! Gilda, these the punks you and Lightning Dust tangled with up top?”

Gilda, beat curled in a small scowl, looked like she was already prepped to pounce, wings tense and blades up, “Yeah, same dweebs. Honing in on our payday.”

The pegasus, Lightning Dust, heaved out an aggravated sigh her own guns trained quite specifically on Raindrops. Raindrops was returning the favor, keeping her heavy machine gun steady in her chrome hooves as she gave the other pegasus mare a cold stare. Trixie gulped, realizing just how fast this could turn into a horribly violent drek-storm (moreso than it already had anyway) if somepony didn’t try to defuse the situation, or at least delay things.

“Hold on a moment!” she called out, “No need to get hasty, we’re all professionals here, right?”

She cast Lyra a searching look, hoping the other unicorn could take the lead, but Lyra seemed less willing to talk. Lyra had moved defensively in front of Ocatvia, balancing on her hind legs as she aimed her sniper rifle squarely at Iron Will’s head. Her stoney, hard expression said she had no intention of allowing anything to stop her from getting her friend out of the facility. Still, she hadn’t fired, and she returned Trixie’s look with a small nod, basically saying this was Trixie’s show if she wanted to talk things out. From Lyra’s stance Trixie surmised the mint unicorn would be willing to back whatever play Trixie made.

Trixie felt her mouth go dry as all eyes were on here. She usually loved attention, and a chance to get on a stage to perform. But she didn’t like trigger happy audiences with heavy ordnance.

Iron Will, for his part, tapped one hoof heavily, slowly licking his lip, and then heaved out a hard laugh, “Iron Will’s a reasonable professional, but you already look like you’re after the same target we are, so Iron Will ain’t seeing anywhere this can go other than seeing which team shoots faster.”

Trixie glanced around, pointedly not looking at Octavia, and held up a hoof in a shrug, “Well let’s confirm that first, shall we? What are you here for?”

Iron Will wagged a thick metal finger at her and the barrels’ of his cannon started to spin, “Ah ah ah, you first, little Miss Gabby Gums. You want to talk, you offer the first olive branch. What are you here for? Iron Will’s already got his guess, but why don’t you go ahead and confirm it.”

Trixie bit her lip, hesitant, but unable to think of any reason to bend the truth here. They needed to walk out of here with Octavia in tow, and to do that without a fight they couldn’t very well try to play it off like they were after anypony or anything else. Taking a deep breath, Trixie said, “We came to extract one of these ponies.”

That seemed like a nice, safe, unspecific answer that still answered the question. Iron Will wasn’t having any vagueness, though.

“Iron Will’s gonna guess your package is an earth pony mare, mid-twenties, gray coat, black mane and tail, violet eyes, cutie mark of a music note? Sort of looks like the one hiding behind your sharpshooter over there?”

Trixie grimaced, How did he know...? Oh drek on the sun, they have the same description we do. They are here for her!

“Maybe,” she said after a moment, slowly edging towards the nearest lab table, having a sinking feeling it’d offer feeble cover against the kind of firepower arrayed towards her and the rest of the team.

Iron Will’s face turned into a mock crestfallen shake as he grinned in a false front of understanding, “See there, that’s the problem Iron Will knew he’d need to ‘iron’ out. Just knew if there was another team here they had to be after the same target we were, ‘cause Iron Will, you see, got told by a little birdie that’d be the case. In fact, might look at it like we were sent here specifically to make sure that particular mare never sees the light of another day. Real sad. Iron Will usually ain’t in for assassination. Likes a fight too much for wetwork. But when the money’s good enough...”

“You’re right, Iron,” spoke up Cheerilee suddenly, “Assassination isn’t your usual style.”

She’d been keeping inconspicuously off to the side, but now strode out into the open, giving Iron Will a clear look at her. Trixie gulped as she noticed the minotaur aim his weapon towards the magenta mare, though his prominent eyebrow rose as he looked at her, a light of recognition gradually dawning in his eyes.

“Blackcherry? Hah, stripe my chrome and call me a fleshbag, didn’t think I’d be seeing you anytime ever! Hadn’t heard anything about you cropping up in the shadow biz since the slotted-up run against Appleosian Arms. Thought you’d dropped the biz altogether girl!”

He’d completely lost his third-person speaking pattern, Trixie noticed, and for all that he still held a tension in his massive frame bespeaking of the capacity to instantly leap into violence, he had cracked a wide grin at seeing Cheerilee. She returned the smile, and Trixie had to give the mare credit for not only staying calm and frosty in this situation, but Trixie couldn’t even tell if the smile was fake or the genuine article.

“Oh, you know me Iron, I can’t give up the shadows. Just too much fun,” Cheerilee said, tilting her head up at the minotaur, her eyes lidding slightly, and a giving a small side flick of her tail, “Would’ve dropped you a line sometime, but I think you understand why I might’ve wanted a change of scenery after Appleosian Arms. Didn’t just need a low profile, needed a new profile. Kind of surprised to see you out this way, you said you had no interest in doing runs anywhere other than the Hoofington ‘plex. What gives?”

Iron Will shrugged, “Offer I couldn’t refuse. We’re talking serious bits, Blackcherry, the kind you can retire off of if you want. This payday gets done and I can pick which part of the world I want to build a mansion in.”

“Since when does Iron Will, baddest fragger in the Hoofington sprawl, care about retiring to a life of opulent boredom?” Cheerilee asked.

“Since he realized he wasn’t getting any younger and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to take it easy for awhile, as long as he had the bits to make it plenty comfy,” he paused briefly, considering, “You want in?”

This caused the teal pegasus mare, Lightning Dust, to snap her eyes towards him, her mouth twisting in a snarl, “What drek is this!? Iron, the splits even between us three! Period! We ain’t bringing in any slitch at the last second!”

The griffin’s feathers had ruffled, tail twitching behind her like a snake, “I’m with Dust on this. We’re wasting time talking. Every second we screw around is another before security reinforcements show up.”

“Can it you two,” Iron Will snapped, “If Blackcherry comes on board on our side, I’m just splitting my own share with her. Still more than enough for a solid retirement, and one less loose end we’d need to tidy up here.”

Cheerilee’s eyes narrowed slightly, “Just so we’re clear, Iron, your job is to kill this mare over here?” she gestured back towards Octavia, who gulped and paled under the attention, every inch of her coiled tensely as if ready to bolt.

“She matches the description of our target, yeah,” Iron Will admitted, tone going stone cold, “No confusion in our instructions. Get in, do as much damage to the lab as possible, ice the lead scientist, and get out loud and messy. The client really wants this place shaken up, but the main target’s the gray mare. Sorry Blackcherry, our payday is her corpse. Now you mares can stand aside; I ain’t getting paid for a body count beyond our target. But she ain’t leaving this building breathing.”

Cheerilee sighed, head drooping, and ears flattening as a look of sad acceptance on her face, “It was worth a shot to see if we could talk this out.”

Her tail flicked again, only this time Trixie saw the hint of matte black metal amid the two toned pink locks of hair, and without warning there was a screech of pain from the griffin as a throwing knife embedded itself in her shoulder. The entire room exploded into motion then, Trixie first among them, diving for the table she’d been edging towards for cover.

Iron Will’s rotary shotgun spat a roaring hail of destruction at where Cheerilee had been standing, but the mare had sprung from that spot like a magenta frog. She landed by a lab table that she turned around and bucked straight up towards the minotaur with surprising strength, the metal table sailing through the air only to be batted aside by one of the minotaur’s burly cybernetic arms.

Lightning Dust had sprung forward, her wings flapping full speed, her SMGs throwing a stream of rounds at Raindrops. Raindrops in turn dropped down, diving past the line of gunfire. With a single powerful sweep of her wings she shot forward to meet Lightning Dust, blocking bullets with one foreleg. While sparks danced off the chrome of that leg, she swung with her machine gun, using it like a giant metal club. It clipped Lightning Dust’s left wing, sending her spinning, but the mare was quick to recover and turned in mid-air, flying backwards and upside down. Before she could fire she had to roll away from Raindrops’ follow up attack, the machine gun barking and cutting the air with tracers.

Meanwhile the griffin Gilda had torn the throwing knife from Cheerilee out of her shoulder, growling as she dove down towards Lyra and Octavia. Lyra stood her ground, aiming her sniper rifle. The soft, suppressed sound of the rifle firing was all but lost amid the sound of gunfire and the ponies of the lab staff screaming. Gilda juked to the right, a few of her feathers clipped off by the near miss of the rifle round, and then she was all but on top of Lyra. However Gilda wasn’t aiming for Lyra, but instead was going for Octavia, her monofilament blades slashing out from above at the gray mare.

Octavia had ducked, covering her head, and at that moment Lyra instantly shouldered her rifle and sprang into the air like a nimble ballet dancer, pirouetting in the air. Her hooves snapped out with blinding speed, slapping the flats of the monoblades, deflecting them away from Octavia. Gilda growled, landing on a table and nimbly twirling her body around, using the momentum of her flight to hurl herself back at Octavia once more, blades thrust out, only to find Lyra there again with her hooves expertly redirecting the attacks with fast hoof slaps that were fueled by the Adept’s inner magic.

“Outta the damned way!” Gilda snarled, refocusing her attention on Lyra, her twin swords becoming a hazy blur as she swiped dozens of times at the mint unicorn as she dove in and out of range.

“Not a fraggin’ chance!” Lyra growled back, golden eyes all but blazing. In fact, Trixie was certain part of that glow was coming from Lyra’s Adept magic, which continued to power her supernatural speed and toughened hooves. Lyra ducked and tilted her body sharply, her hooves matching the tempo of Gilda’s swords. Even with Lyra’s magic flowing through her hooves, they were not immune to those wickedly sharp blades, and blood coated her forelegs from several cuts when Lyra couldn’t quite block at a safe angle.

Trixie, breathing hard, terrified, glanced back towards Iron Will. The lab ponies had scattered towards the far side of the room, leaving the main lab all but empty save for Trixie, and Cheerilee. Up on the catwalk Iron Will remained a stationary statue of gleaming metal, raining down destruction on the lab with his shotgun seeming to have an endless supply of ammunition. Cheerilee dove and scrambled about, using every piece of laboratory equipment available to give her cover from the unrelenting stream of bullets. Beaker’s exploded, computers shattered, and potentially priceless artifacts were torn apart under the rain of slugs, all the while Cheerilee staying one step ahead of the death dealing hail. She wasn’t even bothering to shoot back, and Trixie didn’t really blame her. Iron Will not only had enough metal built into him to be considered practically a tank, he also wore thick enough combat armor that even if he wasn’t cybered-up Trixie doubted that Cheerilee’s little machine pistol would do more than tickle him.

“Anytime you want to pitch in, hun!” shouted Cheerilee as she ran by Trixie’s hiding place, and she tossed Trixie a wry wink.

“Huh!?” Trixie responded with a bewildered blink, before realizing that Iron Will’s proverbial waterfall of destruction was sweeping by her own hidey hole beneath a flimsy lab table.

Trixie threw herself away just in time, rolling up against a fallen computer terminal as the table she’d just been under got nearly torn in half by the gunfire while it chased after Cheerilee. Trixie, lungs heaving and heart trying its best to crawl out of her throat, glanced up at the minotaur to see he wasn’t even paying attention to anything other than the fleeing magenta mare.

Right, do something. I should do... something.

Trixie took a second or two, working out her plan, and went to work after breathing deeply and finding her center of calm. Or mostly calm. Pretend calm. Primarily mortal terror, with a light blanket of calm covering it up. Made casting somewhat more difficult, but not outside her ability. Instead of drawing on the Astral Plane she instead dipped into her unicorn magic, pushing her innate magic through her horn, causing it to alight with a azure glow.

Weaving threads of magic, shining silver strands merging in her mind's eye with verdant green and misty blue, Trixie wove together a spell and cast it towards the minotaur who was bellowing over the sound of his rotary cannon's deafening blasts.

"Didn't have to be this way Blackcherry! Made you a solid offer, and you spat it back at Iron Will's face! Now Iron Wills got to turn you into paste!"

However right on the heels of his threat Iron Will found his entire head was bathed in a mirrorsheen bright aura of what looked like liquid moonlight. He roared and shook his head, flailing about with one hand to try and clear the light away, but Trixie's spell held fast. Iron Will's gunfire went completely erratic, sweeping around the entire room.

Cheerilee gave Trixie a happy grin, nodding her approval, at least until she had to duck to the floor as a rand hosing of errant shots flew above her head. Trixie, already back in cover, such as it was, shouted, "That's not going to last long! If we're running, now would be a good time!"

Even as she spoke she realized her error, as Iron Will laughed in a dark, menacing guffaw of triumph, having heard her clearly and picked out Trixie's position. Trixie felt her blood run cold as Iron Will casually raised his left arm and pointed in her general direction. Not sure what was coming but quite certain she needed to promptly relocate, Trixie rushed from the busted up computer terminal she'd been using as cover at about the same instant that a hatch on Iron Will's cyberarm popped open.

"Have a taste of Iron Will's patented Assertive Armor Shredding Micromissiles! Satisfaction guaranteed or your money, and internal organs, back!"

Trixie didn't even think the sales pitch made sense but didn't exactly have time to criticise the minotaur on his technique. Mainly due to the fact that a pair of small missiles streaked out of the launcher built into Iron Will's cyberarm and flew towards Trixie's cover. She scrambled away at full speed, desperately throwing up a makeshift magic shield with a few fast arcane gestures and power words. The Astral energies surged through her, hitting her hard with the drain of the unfamiliar spell, one of her least practiced among her repertoire of mage spells. But her unicorn magic was even less suited to form a barrier. The missiles hit the floor where Trixie had been hiding just a few seconds earlier, and detonated in a devastating swarm of armor piercing fragments and concussive shockwave.

Trixie felt herself lifted off the ground by the force of the blast, propelled through the air to slam into the top of a laboratory table that was thankfully beaker free, or devoid of any other sharp, pointy objects. Still hurt like a mule kick to the face, through. Fortunately either through sheer luck or the effectiveness of her magic shield the missile shrapnel hadn’t torn her apart, just given her a few nasty cuts here and there.

“Ugggh... Trixie now realizes that she is not being paid nearly enough to be here,” she said, laying on her back on the lab table, bleeding and dazed. She then blinked and shook her head, “Did I just speak in third person?”

“Iron Will isn’t impressed with either stealing his speech method or surviving his missile barrage!... Actually Iron Will admits its kind of impressive you’re not a bloody stain on the floor after that, but hey, second times the charm!”

Iron Will, the spell that Trixie had thrown up on his head having gradually faded by this point, locked his eyes on the prone unicorn and aimed his cyberarm once more. She tried to roll off the table, knowing she wouldn’t be able to get off a second shield spell, or even if she did that the chances of it working against a direct hit would be nill. Iron Will grinned, but the expression vanished as Cheerilee, taking advantage of his distraction, leaped up to the top of the walkway he was standing on and galloped straight up behind the minotaur. Jumping onto his back she wrapped hooves around his neck and jerked back, forcing the massive metaled up behemoth backwards. Similarly his arm jerked up as his second pair of missiles fired, the of track explosives detonating along the ceiling.

This caused not only glass and plaster to rain down, but the sprinkler system to activate, bathing the laboratory in a downpour of water.

Iron Will reached up with his free hand with a annoyed growl and gripped Cheerilee’s hooves, “If you wanted to ride Iron Will again Blackcherry, ought’ve just took the deal! Ain’t in the mood now, through if you wanna get slammed, Iron Will abides!”

With that he heaved himself backwards, smashing his bulk, Cheerilee along with it, into the wall. Cheerilee grunted in pain, but kept her grip as she aimed her machine pistol with her mouth and fired at the shoulder joint of Iron Will’s massive arm, sending sparks flying as the bullets tore at the cybernetics. Iron Will roared and slammed his back into the wall again, hard enough to leave a dent in the metal surface, and this time Cheerilee lost her grip on the minotaur, slipping to the ground in a battered heap.

Trixie had managed to get off the table, landing lightly on her hooves, teetering slightly. Seeing Cheerilee’s slumped form, not knowing if the mare was unconscious or worse, but knowing full well her intervention had saved Trixie from becoming this room’s new coat of paint, Trixie felt a hot ball of anger flare inside her at the brutish minotaur.

“That is it!” Trixie snorted, planting her hooves and aiming her horn at Iron Will, “I have had quite enough of you!”

Iron Will scoffed, hefting his rotary shotgun with one arm. His other arm was twitching erratically from the damage Cheerilee had done to it, but Iron Will seemed more than able to hold the gun steady with his remaining good arm. Even as the barrels started to spin Trixie channeled magic through her horn. From the elevator there was a chime and the doors slide open, revealing a half dozen security ponies that came charging out, guns blazing. Iron Will, more surprised that intimidated by the arrival of the security force, turned around, and after only a second of hesitation leveled his weapon at them and fired away. In doing so he’d turned his back on Trixie. The security ponies didn’t stand up to Iron Will’s gunfire, but then they didn’t have to, because they weren’t really there. The illusions vanished in bursts of blue smoke as Iron Will’s gunfire tore up the wall behind them.

The minotaur blinked, having to take another slow second to figure out that he’d been fooled by an illusion, before turning around to face the unicorn he knew had to be responsible Only she wasn’t there anymore. Looking left and right he didn’t see any sign of the azure mare, and he snorted in frustration.

----------

Meanwhile Lyra and Gilda’s close-range duel had taken them in a winding path across to the back of the laboratory. Gilda had apparently given up on attempting to target Octavia and was now thoroughly engrossed with trying to overwhelm Lyra, the griffin’s eyes narrowed to a slits and her beak twisted in a set scowl of outrage. Gilda made full use of her wings, swooping up and down, using height and momentum to try and land anything resembling a decisive blow on the ever moving Lyra. For every slash and thrust of Gilda’s swords they were met either by air as Lyra smoothly rolled away from the blow, or by a expertly timed hoof that would slap the blade away. However for all that Gilda seemed to have no ability to land a solid hit, Lyra was so occupied by defense she didn’t seem to be able to work up a counter attack. Both were moving with fluid speed, Lyra graceful and light on her hooves as a ground clinging mist, and Gilda moving with the savage, fast ferocity befitting her predatory blood.

Gilda rose into the air and flipped over Lyra’s head, turning around and diving down, both blades slashing horizontally from opposite directions. Lyra spun away, taking a slight tear on her shoulder with a shallow cut to her hide, and she tried launching a sharp kick with one of her back legs, but had to retract it to keep Gilda from lopping the limb right off.

“Actually giving me a workout here,” Gilda said grudgingly, pressing her attack, swiping and catching a few locks of Lyra’s mane, “Congrats, you’re the second wimp pony to make me actually break a sweat.”

Lyra didn’t bother to respond to the griffin, her face still with focus as she cartwheeled out of the way of one of Gilda’s thrusts, jumping up on top of a long metal table lined with lab equipment, including a trio of robotic arms that swiveled over a portion of the table apparently made to contain an item for the arms to manipulate with whatever magic-tech apparatus was installed in them. Lyra didn’t care what they did, she just grabbed one and ripped it free of its housing to then spin around and launch at Gilda’s face.

Gilda snorted contemptuously and swatted the robotic arm out of the air, only to find the second and third arms already torn free by Lyra and launched at her at enough speed to almost match bullets. Gilda had to twist and turn at awkward angles to avoid getting clobbered, and only when she landed on the ground, unbalanced, did she realized that Lyra hadn’t been trying to hit her with those improvised ballistic missiles, just put her off balance.

Before Gilda could fully recover she found the mint unicorn instantly in her face, both fore legs snapping out like vipers. Now it was Gilda on the defensive, forced to scramble away from Lyra’s powerful blows, one of which made a solid dent in the metal floor as Gilda rolled away from it. Growling, the griffin scrambled to get airborne again. Lyra was having none of that, however.

Ignoring danger to her own safety Lyra sprung into the air as Gilda rose, snapping her leg out in a flying kick. Gilda slashed with her blades, and Lyra deflected one barely while she had to use her arm to shield her body from the blow, taking a horrific, deep gash. Despite the wound it did nothing to stop Lyra’s momentum as her kick landed firmly on Gilda’s chest with a loud cracking sound. The griffin’s eyes widened and a gasp of air escaped her beak, along with a bit of blood, as she was knocked cleanly from the air and landed on the floor, bouncing once before slamming into a table.

Lyra landed as well, wincing as her injured leg almost failed to support her weight. Gilda slowly started to crawl back up, glaring at Lyra as she spat blood out of her beak.

“Y-you...” Gilda’s voice rose into a roar, eyes flaring with fury, “ARE DEAD!”

Gilda launched herself at Lyra, blades swept out to her sides, berserk rage bristling from every inch of the griffin’s body. Lyra braced herself, her injured leg hanging limply as she balanced on her hind legs, readying to fight with her remaining good fore leg up in a ready stance.

Only before Gilda reached Lyra there was a blast of wind that swirled around the lab, causing papers and loose debris to fly everywhere, followed by a deep, melodious thrum of sound that cut right at Lyra’s heart. It was a familiar, nostalgic sound for Lyra, who looked to her right to see the source of the sound and the sight took her breath away.

Octavia Philharmonica was standing on her hind legs, her previous fear still showing in the tear stains under her eyes, but now her face was a focused, hardened mask as she had her hooves raised before her, cradling an instrument and bow before her. The tall cello was carved from beautiful dark mahogany and along its surface intricate and meticulous etchins of magical symbols joined together to form pictographs of owls. A black cello case lay empty next to Ocatavia, through where it had come from wasn’t clear. On Octatvia’s shoulder as she pulled the bow across the cello’s magical strings an image of an owl appeared from thin air and alighted upon Octavia’s shoulder, white and translucent, with piercing blue eyes.

Astral energy coursed from the cello’s strings, and a shimmering field of force appeared in front of the earth pony mare that crackled with arcs of lightning. With a low, violent chord from the cello the lightning surged forward like a raging whip, a coiling bolt of electricity that slammed into Gilda and sent the griffin bouncing across the lab until she hit the far wall, smoking. A throaty, resonate sound of the cello echoed over the sound of gunfire from the other battles in the room, and Octavia gave Lyra a look as she stepped forward, still holding the spirit foci, for that was what the cello was, close to her chest.

“I do not know what this is about, Lyra, but I am going to... to trust you. But you will owe me answers once we’re away from here.”

Lyra nodded, glancing to make sure that Gilda wasn’t getting back up before heading over to Octavia. The griffin seemed down for the count, wisps of smoke trailing up from singed feathers. Lyra didn’t know, nor particularly care, if the griffin was alive or dead.

The sound of gunfire above tore Lyra’s attention towards the sight of Raindrops and that teal pegasus, Lightning Dust, still thoroughly engaged in a battle of blazing gunplay in the limited space above the laboratory.

Lightning Dust was unquestionably the faster flier, darting circles around the signifigantly slower Raindrops. Again and again bursts of fire from Lightning Dust’s SMGs pelted Raindrops’ form, but Lyra just needed to watch for a moment to realize just how much Lightning Dust was underestimating the second most dangerous member of Lyra’s team.

Much of Raindrop’s jasmine coat was intact, but that only hid the extent of the cybernetics and bio-tech alterations that made the mare a machine of destruction. Her chrome hooves were really just the tip of the proverbial iceburg. Thick layers of dermal plating and armor weave built into her muscles made Raindrops a living tank, even if she wasn’t wearing a heavily armored coat designed to stop point black assault rifle fire.

Lightning Dust’s SMGs were loaded with armor piercing rounds, which were chipping through Raindrops’ defenses, but not nearly fast enough.

“Ha! This all you got!? You’re so slow, you can’t even dodge, let alone hit me!” Lightning Dust didn’t seem to notice that the way her opponent was slowly gliding around, shielding her face with one hoof while firing short bursts with her machine gun with the other, was neither really trying to dodge or hit her opponent. Raindrops was just waiting for her moment.

Her eyes were focused unblinkingly on Lightning Dust’s movements, the other pegasus perhaps being fast, but not fast enough to escape the digital tracking of Raindrops’ cybernetic eyes. Raindrops slowly banked left, making it look like she was trying to avoid the bursts from Lightning Dust by interposing the giant spherical object in the center of the room. Bullets bounced off the magical wards protecting the sphere, but Lightning Dust just laughed as she easily kept pace with Raindrops’ lazy maneuvering, a confident grin plastered on her face.

“Can’t run, can’t dodge, and can’t fight!” Lightning Dust taunted, “I feel real sorry for your team, stuck with a loser like you that can’t hit anything. How many times have I nailed you so far, slowpoke?”

She flipped upside down, looking for all the world like she was swimming backwards at she flew above Raindrops’ slow banking turn, firing her SMGs in another pair of bursts that pelted Raindrop’s back and wing. Raindrops let out a small cry as her hit wing folded and she spun out and crashed on the ground. Lightning Dust laughed and dove. She dove so fast that there was no chance at all to pull out of it as Raindrops, far more nimbly than she’d been moving before, sprang up and jammed the barrel of her machine gun into Lightning Dust’s sternum.

Lighting Dust gasped, the air blasted out of her lungs, stunned, and unable to defend herself as Raindrops’ hoof smashed into her face with bone shattering force, knocking the other mare’s jaw loose. Lightning Dust hit the ground, dropping her SMGs, and tried to crawl away as Raindrops’ stalked towards her.

“How many times you hit in a fight doesn’t matter,” Raindrops said, smashing a hoof down and pinning Lightning Dust to the ground, and shoving the barrel of her machine gun into the other pegasus’ mouth, “All that matters is the last hit.”

“Raindrops,” Lyra said, not shouting, but not having to.

Raindrops didn’t glance Lyra’s way, but eased off, sliding the machine gun out of Lightning Dust’s mouth. She snorted and smacked Lightning Dust hard across the face, knocking the other mare out cold, “Relax Lyra... just thought I’d give her a good scare.”

From the dry, even tone Raindrops used, Lyra wasn’t so sure, but no point arguing results. Two of the enemy runners were down, which just left the big minotaur to deal with before they were free and clear to get the frack out of this place. Then Lyra could find out what Aurora Heavy Industries had done to Octavia, and hopefully find some leads that would finally lead her towards her goal. Towards her Bon Bon.

Coming around the large, strange metal sphere that took up the center of the lab, Lyra and Octavia joined Raindrops and looked towards the end of the laboratory with the elevator.

They did so just in time to see, through the falling water of the recently activated sprinkler system, Iron Will swinging his rotary shotgun around, firing random bursts around the lab. By now the lab staff had long since fled to the furthest corners of the room, staying well out of the way of the line of fire. Lyra could see Cheerilee unconscious on the ground behind Iron Will, but she didn’t see Trixie anywhere. Carrot Top’s medical drone was hiding in cover behind a few overturned, shot up tables, and Lyra heard Carrot Top’s voice through her comlink.

~Lyra, Raindrops, good to see you two are okay. We kind of have our hooves full with this muscle head. Cheerilee is down, but my scanner reads her bio-feed as still in the green. I think she’s playing possum. Don’t know where that Trixie mare is at. She vanished into thin air.~

Lyra knew where Trixie was, however, as let her eyes slip into Astral perception and saw the lines of mana that made up Trixie’s being. Lyra suspected Trixie was using her unicorn magic to be invisible. As she watched Trixie, slowly sneaking up the stairs to the platform Iron Will was on, aimed her horn at a computer terminal and knocked it over with magic, which caused Iron Will to snap in that direction and blast the computer apart.

“Iron Will is not amused by the ghost tricks! If all you can do is sneak around all I got to do is wait for you to run out of magic,” he grinned eagerly, “And the second you appear, Iron Will’s got a special way of dealing with folk that get on his bad side.”

Lyra’s gunshot rang out to punctuate his speech and chipped one of his horns as the large rifle round smacked into the wall behind the minotaur. Iron Will’s focus immediately went to Lyra and the mare’s beside her. He started to raise his rotary shotgun but Lyra saw his eyes flick about the room and the hesitance cross his previously confident features.

“If you’re looking for the rest of your team, they’re down,” Lyra said. Iron Will snorted in anger and she saw the veins on his forehead pop out, so she decided to add, “They’re not dead. I don’t think. Only way you’ll get to check is if you back down.”

“Iron Will doesn't back down; he throws down!” the minotaur proclaimed loudly, but Lyra could see the hesitance. He knew the odds had just shifted heavily against him. That and he might actually be genuinely worried about the health of his teammates. Wasn’t entirely unknown amongst shadowrunners. Lyra knew she was worried about Cheerilee and if it hadn’t been for Carrot Top’s assurance that Cheerilee wasn’t badly hurt Lyra’s first round might’ve just been aimed for Iron Will’s head instead of his horn.

“Fine by me,” she said nonchalantly, “Fight, if you want. You might get one more of us, but you’ll still go down, all the same. Or, conversely, you stand aside, weapon slung, and let us walk. Then you can collect your fallen teammates and maybe get out of here before A.H.I sends reinforcements to clean this place up.”

“And ruin my reputation by failing this job?” Iron Will asked with grinding teeth.

Lyra shrugged, seeing Trixie had managed to sneak up close to the minotaur, the azure unicorn low to the ground and looking terrified, but determined to be ready in case negotiations broke down. Lyra smiled. She knew Trixie could handle herself on a run; she’d been a good pick. Her attention hadn’t left Iron Will, however, and she turned her smile into something encouraging.

“Any runner knows not all jobs go smooth. Glitches happen. Its not going to ruin your rep, and any professional runner knows when its time to walk away, especially if its the lives on teammates on the line. You can’t win them all.”

“You can’t win them all, huh?” Iron Will parotted thoughtfully, “Never heard that one before...”

Lyra watched the gears turn in Iron Will’s head, could imagine him trying to work out just what his real odds were of taking her, Raindrops, Trixie, and Octavia on all at once. She saw the moment of decision in his eyes before he lowered the barrels of his shotgun and clipped the weapon to his back, stepping out of the way of the elevator, hands held out at his sides. Lyra let out a breath.

“Good choice,” she said, and quickly looked at Carrot Top’s drone, “Go check Cheerilee. Trixie, you can stop hiding.”

Trixie appeared, letting her invisibility go, and scuffing a hoof while giving Iron Will a wary sidelong look, “I was not hiding, I was tactically positioning myself using the time honored method of stealth and guile!”

Iron Will, hands still held out in a gesture of surrender, gave Trixie a deadpan look, “There’s a word for that. Hiding, I think.”

Trixie turned her nose up, but quickly turned worried as she watched Carrot Top’s drone fly up to where Cheerilee was. Trixie trotted towards the fallen mare just as Lyra, Raindrops, and Octavia joined them by the elevator.

“She’s going to be alright?” Trixie asked. Before Carrot Top could respond Cheerilee herself snapped her hooves up and pulled Trixie into a tight hug, nibbling playfully on Trixie’s neck.

“Raaar! Sudden zombie sneak attack!”

“Gggaaaah!” Trixie scrambled out of Cheerilee’s grip, which the other mare didn’t fight as she was too busy laughing. Trixie, eyes wide, pointed an accusatory hoof at Cheerilee.

“You crazy mare! You don’t do things like that! Do you want me to have a heart attack!?”

“Heheh, oh, that was good,” Cheerilee said, wiping her eyes, “Figured since I couldn’t surprise Iron Will I might as well surprise you. A mare’s got to find her fun somewhere, right?”

Trixie still looked shaken but Lyra smoothed things out by putting a hoof on the other mare’s leg and giving Trixie a small smile, “Good work, keeping Iron Will occupied. Glad I brought you along, Trixie.”

Trixie went from glaring at Cheerilee to beaming at Lyra’s compliment and Lyra’s smile deepened. She remembered that with Trixie a little praise could go a long way. Raindrops had already opened the elevator, while covering Iron Will with her machine gun.

“Time to go folk,s” Raindrops said, “I think we’ve more than overstayed our welcome here.”

Lyra nodded and motioned for Cheerilee and Trixie to get on the elevator. As they did Cheerilee gave Iron Will a parting look, blowing him a kiss, to which the minotaur just snorted and rolled his eyes, waving one of his hands as if trying to waft the kiss away. Cheerilee just chuckled, “Don’t be a sore loser. Next time we meet I might give you a consolation prize.”

Iron Will perked up slightly at that but otherwise showed no reaction. Lyra shook her head and turned to Octavia, who had a worried, almost haunted look on her face as she looked back towards the laboratory. The mare had her cello case strapped to her back now, seeming having no difficulty in carrying the large instrument.

“There is something in me that is screaming at me that I’m making a mistake,” said Octavia, and she looked at Lyra with confused eyes, “I can’t believe that you truly don’t remember our contact all these years, or that there’s some manner of spell on me as you claim.”

Lyra saw Octavia gather her strength, calming herself with a single, controlled breath, the same way she had in all those many practice sessions they shared together before playing back in college, “I am trusting you Lyra Heartstrings. I... I have to, if I’m to believe you’re the same mare I thought I’ve known for so long. Please, don’t prove my trust misplaced.”

Lyra offered her hoof, and after a second Octavia took it and Lyra led her onto the elevator, “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

----------

Going back through the hallways of the facilities’ ground floor Trixie was left feeling rattled, both by the fading of the adrenaline in her system and by the disquieting, eerie silence that dominated the empty halls. After all the deafening sounds of gunfire from the fight minutes ago it was strange just to hear the dull echoing of her own and the other’s hooves. Trixie was tired, feeling a tad sick to her stomach. Even with Carrot Top’s drone having patched her leg, a gunshot wound was a gunshot wound. Pain meds could only go so far, and Trixie knew that between blood loss, her heavy spellcasting for the day, and just physical exertion that she’d need a nice, long rest after this.

But first they had to escape. The tension clear in the alert, ever searching gazes in the rest of the team’s eyes. None had put their weapons away, and looked more than ready for further trouble. Trixie, reluctantly, drew the Timberwolf IV she’d been given, disliking the feel of the bulky pistol in her magical grip. The last thing she wanted to do was be forced to use the weapon, but if it was a choice between that, or dying...

“Ditzy should have contacted us by now,” Lyra said worriedly, her features grim, “Its not like her to remain quiet this long.”

“Carrot Top?” Raindrops asked, giving the medical drone a side-long look.

~Her vitals still seem good, though though fluctuated a bit during the scuffle in the lab. She hasn’t responded to me, but that might just be because she’s got her filters and buffers going full tilt. That or she’s diving hot, which means she can’t respond to us.~

Carrot Top’s voice also held a strain of concern over the com link. Cheerilee was quick to pipe in, “We know where she hid herself.”

Lyra nodded, “We grab her, whatever conditions she’s in, then we’re out. Carrot, the skies still clear?”

~For now, but it’s already been near twenty minutes since this show kicked off. It won’t be long before the cavalry arrives, and we really don’t want to be here when it does.~

Lyra led them on a different route than they took on their way in, and Trixie could only assume she was following the maps of the facility they had downloaded to their comlinks to find the room Ditzy Doo had hidden herself in. The route took them past the front lobby, which all of them had to pause and stare at for a moment. The entire small lobby was shot to pieces, the glass front doors exploded to shards, and the front desk a burning hulk of shattered wood. Several bodies of guard ponies lay strewn about the devastation and Trixie had to gulp down rising bile at the sight.

While the runners were grim faced at the scene, Octavia looked as if she had taken a blow to her chest, gasping and holding a hoof to her mouth. Shocked eyes looked towards Lyra, but the mint colored mare looked at Octavia with unblinking eyes and spoke with an unwavering voice of sincerity, “This wasn’t us Octy. We came in quiet and intended to get out quiet. This was the other groups work.”

“And that makes this better, how...?” Octavia breathed, her shock soon turning to burning fury, “Is this the kind of life you’ve chosen, Lyra!?”

Raindrops growled, “Save the sanctimonious accusations until we’re out of here. Where’s Ditzy?”

“This way,” Lyra said, giving Octavia one last, sad look before leading them on to a side hall that was lined side by side with many doors, one of which was a clearly labeled utility closet.

It was locked, but that didn’t last long between Raindrops and Lyra’s efforts, after knocking didn’t work, nor did calling for Ditzy over the comlink. The reason why was soon obvious as the door opened. Inside the closet was larger than its purpose might suggest, consisting of half a dozen cubby’s in the wall for maintenance and cleaning drones and a single control desk with computer terminal situated at the back.

Ditzy Doo at at this desk, slumped over the terminal. Her eyes were closed, and through Trixie saw no visible wounds, a trickle of blood was leaking from the gray pegasus mare’s nose. A single cable ran from the port in the datajack in Ditzy’s mane to the computer terminal, a faint bit of smoke wafting up from the machine. Trixie’s heart leapt into her throat in fear for the mare, but her fear lessened somewhat when she saw the rise and fall of Ditzy’s chest.

“Ditzy!” Lyra was there almost as fast as Raindrops, and Carrot Top’s medical drone was right behind the pair. Cheerilee, smiling face now turned deathly serious, took up a guard position outside the door with Octavia, while Trixie stood just inside, unsure of what to do that would be of any help.

“Carrot Top, I thought you said her vitals were good?” said Raindrops, giving the drone an accusing glare.

~They are!~ insisted Carrot Top as the drone hovered close to Ditzy, a plethora of medical tools descending from the bottom of the drone like a bizarre crab’s legs. ~I don’t know why... oh drek, somepony’s pipped in a false feed through my own filters! Hold on, I’m scanner her directly now..~

Just as Carrot Top’s drone started to bath Ditzy in a soft red glow of a scanning device the smoking terminal’s screen popped and fizzled, but a clear image began to appear on the small screen. A light yellow stallion with a cocksure grin, red mane and moustache, and gleaming green eyes.

“Well well well, so good to see some ponies giving a care for their own teammate. Warms your heart, doesn’t o’ brother of mine?”

Another stallions voice answered from somewhere off screen, “Indeed it does, dear brother o’ mine, indeed it does. Makes me shed a tear to see. Such camaraderie is sorely lacking in the common dregs of shadowrunner society these days! Speaking of comrades, brother, do you see ours about anywhere?”

The moustached stallion’s head bobbed on the screen in a nod, “Not at all brother. Now isn’t that discouragingly disconcerting? Seems our errant enormous egotistical employer and his deadly dynamic dunderheaded duo of frequently ferocious fliers have been soundly put down by our rambunctious righteous rivals in crime!”

“What are we to do about this most perilous of predicaments, o’ brother of mine?” came the sarcastic reply.

“Who are you two and what have you done to my teammate?” Lyra in a cold, measured tone.

“Such a good question! A good question indeed!” said the moustached stallion, “Brother would you like the honors this time?”

“No, no, no, dear brother, I believe its your turn to have the pleasure!” said the off-screen voice.

With a wide, oily grin the moustached stallion looked at the ponies gathered around the monitor and the unconscious Ditzy, “Then it is with great pleasure and personal acclaim that I introduce you all to the most superbe sibling shadowrunners! He’s Flim, and I’m Flam, and we’re the world famous-”

“I don’t actually care about your names, just tell me what you did to Ditzy,” Lyra interrupted, voice hard and edged as a sword.

Flam’s eyebrows rose and his eyes flashed with insulted anger as he calmly snorted and raised a mocking hoof, “Some ponies have no flare, do they dear brother? Why don’t you tell them what they want to know while I prepare a proper response to their rude behavior?”

The moustached stallion’s visage vanished from the screen and another’s appeared, nearly identical to the yellow coat and red and white striped mane of the previous stallion. The only difference was this stallion appeared slightly younger, though that might be due to his lack of a moustache that made his youthful grin easier to see.

“Well howdy’d do, Flim here, and before anypony there decides to throw more of a hissy fit and upset my delightfully debonair brother Flam, allow me to enlighten you as to your query. You see the sassy little gray number there was poking around inside this place’s systems, easy as you please. And so was I! Seems we were both after controlling the building’s central control node, and well, there was some disagreement over just who was going to be doing that. I’ll give her credit where it’s due, she nearly had me a half dozen times before I managed to smack her good with a little Blackout program. Painful but theoretically non-lethal bio-feedback. Don’t think I fired her brain, just gave her a nasty headache. Matrix combat isn’t for the faint of heart, even when we play with foal’s gloves. Maybe she’s alright, maybe she’s a vegetable. Just the way the cookie crumbles when you duke it out in cyberspace.”

Raindrops’ hoof slammed onto the desk and she pushed her face right up against the screen, her eyes blazing as she borred a glare straight at Flim, “If you believe in a higher power, start praying to it, chummer. I get my hooves on you, I’m not making your end fast. And that’s if Ditzy turns out to be alright. If she isn’t... I won’t kill you. Not even when you beg me to.”

The sheer, burning intensity of her tone, combined with an unblinking stare that made her words a promise, was enough to make even her teammates look at Raindrops’ askance. Trixie felt the hair on the back of her neck rise and her tail twitch, her natural pony instincts telling her to flee the dangerous predator in the room, even if said “predator” was just another pony. But Raindrops radiated menace at that moment, and even Flim, safe transmitting from wherever he was, gulped.

“Yes, well, that’s a lovely threat, but you might find it hard to enact with us up here and you down there! Be seeing you soon, my dear suckers!”

The monitor cut off and Raindrops smashed her hoof through it, smashing it in a small burst of glass and sparks. Lyra put a heavy hoof on Raindrops’ shoulder and Raindrops rounded on the other mare, eyes flashing.

“Calm down,” Lyra said, voice steel, “We look to our own first, then worry about them if and when we have to.”

Raindrops and Lyra both held each other’s gaze for a long second, the former trembling from mane to tail in bristling anger, the later still and silent as a carved statue of marble. Only the soft groan from Ditzy broke the pair from their standoff, both instantly looking towards the gray pegasus mare as she made another quiet moan, her wings twitching.

“Ditzy!” Raindrops reached for her, but was stopped by Lyra holding out a hoof, who then looked at Carrot Top’s drone.

“Is she okay, Carrot?”

~”I think so. Neural health is a little outside my area of knowledge, but I’m not detecting any of the tell tale signs of a stroke or other similar issues. I think the biofeedback from whatever hit her in the Matrix gave her system a nasty shock, but didn’t fry anything badly. Her heart rate is stable, and she’ll probably wake up on her own soon.~

“We need her moving now,” said Lyra, “Can you give her anything?”

~”I can, but I’m not sure its a good idea. I don’t want to rattle anything in there that doesn’t need rattling. I’d rather give her something to keep her under and resting, quite frankly.”~

“I’ll carry her,” Raindrops said.

Lyra nodded, “Then grab her and let’s move.”

As Raindrops carefully grabbed hold of Ditzy and gently rested the mare on her back the team filed out of the utility room and started to make their way back to the lobby. When they reached it Cheerilee and Lyra took the lead, motioning for the others to hang back for a moment. The pair then slowly crept out through the front doors and into the area where part of the second floor of the facility overhung the front entry. Lyra had her sniper rifle out and gripped in her magic, while Cheerilee had her machine pistol armed in her mouth. Trixie waited alongside Raindrops, Octavia, the still prone Ditzy, and Carrot Top’s quietly buzzing drone.

“What are they doing?” Trixie asked nervously, shifting around on her hooves as she gave an anxious glance towards those around her.

“Use your head,” Raindrops said, “Those two flankholes are obviously part of that minotaur’s team, right?”

“Yes, that part they made pretty clear,” Trixie said, “So? Are we worried they’re hiding in ambush for us?”

Raindrops sighed, “Not an ambush. Not hiding. Think, little miss private eye. How did that team arrive?”

Trixie narrowed her eyes at the disrespectful tone but let it go as she thought it over, and quickly realized what Raindrops was getting at, “The VTOL!”

The flying machine had done quite the number on the A.H.I facility when it had arrived, blasting many of the smaller surrounding buildings with missiles and gunfire. If Flim and Flam were the pilots on board that VTOL they could make getting away quite the challenge, assuming it had any ammunition left after flattening so much of the facilities’ secondary buildings.

Trixie ducked down a bit more behind the potted plant she’d been using for cover, watching Cheerilee and Lyra strike out of the protective overhang with trepidation.

Just as they did so Carrot Top’s voice shouted over the team’s comlinks, ~”Watch out! Those jerks were hiding between the wall and the back of the main building!~

Her words were punctuated by the sudden sound of the VTOL’s engines and the whine of rushing air. Lyra and Cheerilee rushed back inside just in time to avoid a firestorm of autocannon fire, rounds designed for use against other vehicles, not ponies, tore at the ground around them. Trixie caught sight of the matte black VTOL streaking by the sky outside and turning around, bringing its guns to bear again as Lyra and Cheerilee galloped back into the lobby.

“Move! Head for the west side of the building!” Lyra shouted.

As the team of ponies turned and ran Flam’s, or maybe Flim’s, laughing voice could be heard from some external speaker on the VTOL.

“Hah! Where are you running off to? Can’t stay here much longer, can you? I think Aurora Heavy Industries will have its fine security ponies arriving soon in droves. Not a good spot to be in. But thems the breaks, either hide in the building and wait for A.H.I’s inevitable retribution, or brave a run for it and get torn up by our Gloriously Gratuitous Gunship Galore 4000!”

If Trixie wasn’t busy being running for her life as another barrage of cannon fire ripped apart the lobby she was fleeing from she might’ve appreciated the flare of those two stallions, especially their naming conventions. She almost tripped, halfway stumbling as blasted plaster pelted her, but she felt a stabilizing nudge behind her and glanced back to see Octavia right behind her, having kept her from falling.

“T-thanks,” Trixie stammered as they got into the deeper hallways of the building, away from the now thoroughly trashed front lobby.

“Think nothing of it,” Octavia replied with a small nod, “But do try not to fall again. Please. I’ve seen enough ponies be hurt this day.”

Trixie found herself nodding, fully intending to keep her hooves under her. Getting shot to pieces was not on her agenda for the rest of her day. No, her agenda involved copious amounts of running, followed by finding a soft bed to collapse into, go comatose for a few hours/days, then proceed to beat her payment out of Lyra Heartstrings then promptly forgething that she’d ever heard of shadowrunners!

First, however, the running.

The group made short work of the A.H.I hallways, their previous caution tossed aside in favor of speed, and in less than a minute they were at the door they’d previously used to get inside.

~”I’ve got backup moving in!~” said Carrot Top’s tense but hopeful voice, ~”Fear not my friends, Rabbit Buster is on the way!~”

“What’s a Rabbit Buster and why should I find it comforting when we’ve got a heavily armed gunship trying to kill us?” asked Trixie as they gathered around the door.

Lyra had a wan smile on her face as she gripped the doors handle in her magic, “You’ll see. Now when I open this door, we’ll head for the main gate. We can’t scale the wall like before, we’ll be easy targets.”

“Won’t we be easy targets going for the main gate as well?” Trixie pointed out fearfully. She wasn’t too worried about herself, honestly, as one invisibility spell and she’d be golden. But what about the others? She might not have known any of them very well, but that hardly meant Trixie relished the notion of any of them getting gunned down or otherwise coming to harm. Just looking at Ditzy’s form, still unconscious and occasionally moaning in pain as she lay on Raindrop’s back like a limp, wet blanket... it made Trixie’s heart clench. The gray mare had been so bouncy, easily smiling, if a tad off kilter. What if she’d truly had her mind fried earlier? Trixie couldn’t imagine the happy and energetic Ditzy as a brain-dead vegetable, and the mere thought made her want to cringe.

What drove these mares to do such a dangerous job like shadowrunning?

“Its our only way out,” Lyra said in response, “We just have to hope that Carrot Top’s got our backs and can cover us long enough to get to the cover of the tree-line.”

Lyra paused, glancing between Trixie and Octavia, “Do either of you have magic that might help us out here?”

Trixie frowned, her ears drooping, “I have invisibility, but I don’t have enough energy left to cover all of us... I might be able to create some distracting illusions.”

She felt confidence returning as she nodding to herself, “Yes, yes, I know I can throw up enough controlled chaos to made it very hard for those long winded salaud to do anything than to be dazzled into stupefied confusion!”

Octavia, hiding a small smile behind a hoof, merely gave Lyra a solid look, eyes unblinking as she said, “Owl is with me, and can conjure some unpleasant surprises for those who have helped perpetuate this horror on my workplace and cowokers.”

Cheerilee was quick to interject, “Just remember the idea is for all of us to get out of here alive. No silly heroics from either of you,” she winked, “Otherwise I’ll have to punish you when we get back to the safehouse.”

Trixie blinked, trying to shove aside a very sudden and unwanted mental image of whips, and just shook her head, giving Lyra a helpless look. Lyra, face still grim, just gave her team one last look to confirm everypony was ready. At the round of return nods she got Lyra took a deep breath and said, “Here we go.”

The door swung open, and out they went, tearing across the greenery of the facility grounds. Raindrops took to the air, careful to keep Ditzy balanced on her back. Cheerilee took the lead on the ground, galloping ahead around the right side of the building while Trixie and Octavia, alongside Carrot Top’s medical drone followed in a tight pack. Lyra took up the rear, her sniper rifle pointed towards the sky.

Trixie already had her horn aglow with magic, preparing a dozen different possible illusions in her mind by the time the loud whine of VTOL engines filled the air and Flim and Flam’s gunship roared over the roof of the A.H.I building behind the team.

Trixie turned her head just in time to weave her unicorn magic quickly into a wavering stream that then blossomed into a full on burst of bright green, purple, and blue fireworks, complete with rocket sounds and loud explosive pops.

Gunfire still rained down at them, but the powerful line of exploding rounds stitched a destructive path along the group’s path to the left, narrowly missing. As the team rounded the building and the blown open front gates could be seen ahead Trixie put her head down and pumped her legs as fast as she could to keep up. The fireworks would only briefly confuse that VTOL’s targeting, she’d need something bigger, flashier, and a lot more thorough to really throw those candy-cane heads off their game!

Trixie had an idea or two, and despite the terrifying lethality of the situation she had to admit that somewhere deep inside a part of her was relishing the pressure of the challenge. Not so much that she wouldn’t much rather be back at her apartment/office snoozing away the afternoon instead of getting shot at by a military-grade gunship, of course.

The VTOL had climbed higher into the air and was now swinging around to fly in a parallel course to the fleeing ponies while keeping its nose, and impressive weapons array, pointed at them. Trixie began to rapidly conjure another set of fireworks, not having time to stop to work a bigger illusion, but Octavia worked even faster.

“Owl, your strength and wisdom I ask. Let my music be the offering for the protection of your sharp talons and swift wings!”

Octavia’s words were spoken swiftly as she in fluid, practiced motions stood on her hind legs, throwing her cello case open and bringing the instrument out, bow running across the strings in the same instant she grasped the cello balanced between her forelegs. Loud, resonant notes that slowly rose in tone with every strum drowned out the sound of the VTOL’s engines. Quickly a wind kicked up that was clearly unnatural in both its sudden strength and the way it directed itself to buffett the VTOL.

“My my my, you folk are tenacious!” said Flam (or was it Flim?), “A little bad weather and a pretty light show won’t do much to slow down the G4000. Have a generous taste of our patented Showstopper Flechette Burster Special!”

A small hatch opened on the bottom of the VTOL, and despite the harsh, near hurricane force wind swirling around it, a single missile dropped out, spread stabilizing wings, and flared down towards the ponies. Lyra dug her hooves in the turf to rapidly halt her run and turn around, shouting Octavia’s name as she swung her rifle around. Trixie saw the mare’s rifle fire but was too busy running and diving for the close cover of some rubble from a previously blown up side building to see if Lyra hit anything.

Trixie heard the harsh streaking roar of the missile as she threw herself against a burned chunk of former wall, glancing up to see Raindrops also dropping behind the sparse cover with Ditzy Doo held under her, the slightly bigger jasmine colored mare using her body as a shield for the other pegasus.

Instead of an explosion Trixie heard the missile’s screaming engine whine and abruptly grow fainter. Raising her head tentatively she saw the missile streaking upwards and corkscrewing in the air, spinning about to detonate in a shower of metal shards against the far wall of the compound.

“What the!? Brother, did you forget to calibrate the targeting system?” shouted Flam’s voice over the VTOL’s external speaker.

“Why no brother, the targeting is spot on! Or it should be! Wait one money-ticking seconds! What’s this!? What are all these worms doing in my targeting node!?”

The VTOL pulled up sharply, letting loose another missile, which rather than targeting cleanly straight down towards any of the ponies below it, streaked off randomly to explode harmlessly dozens of yards away.

Trixie cocked her head curiously, “Well, that’s convenient.”

“Heh...heheh...that’s why you always...watch your backdoor...” muttered a small, tired voice with a cheerful lilt.

Trixie and Raindrops both stared in open shock as Ditzy Doo opened her eyes, fluttering them in a few hazy blinks as she smiled, “Of course I... ugh... should’ve probably been more focused on defending myself. My head hurts.”

Raindrops ran a hoof over Ditzy’s mane, and Trixie was surprised at how much the pegasus’ normal disdainful or hard expression could so quickly and completely vanish to be replaced by pure tear brimming relief, “Ditzy, are you...?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just got a tambourine band inside my skull right now,” she said, trying to stand, but Raindrops held her down, “Really Raindrops, I can walk. If enough damage had been done so I couldn’t walk, I wouldn’t be able to talk either.

“We don’t have time to argue it,” said Trixie, seeing the VTOL repositioning itself behind the group. Lyra was firing off a few shots at it, which harmlessly sparked off what had to be a hardened cockpit, and Octavia had redoubled her strumming on the cello, blasting the VTOL with more concentrated bursts of wind and lightning, summoning up a veritable storm above the craft... but credit had to be handed to the Flim Flam brothers, they built one solid piece of aerial combat technology.

“Well if normal targeting won’t work then we can still do this the good ol’ fashioned way,” said Flam, laughing, “You ponies put up a good, stiff competition, but our superior skills (and firepower) will win out in the end!”

Cheerilee, who’d gotten furthest towards the gate, spoke over the teams comlink.

“Trixie, if you have any big flashy illusions to pull off, now would be the appropriate time I would think!”

Trixie nodded to herself and swallowing fear as the VTOL opened fire at Lyra, forcing the mint unicorn to cartwheel away in a series of fast evasive flips, she left the protection of cover and began to weave another unicorn spell. Blue strands of smoke curled from her horn, expanded with the pulsing of a heartbeat, and in seconds took the shape of a life sized, full-grown black dragon.

The illusion was as thorough in detail as Trixie could make it and its audio component was as solid as Trixie could conjure with her vivid imagination, letting the fifty foot tall and eighty foot long illusionary beast let out a ear jarringly loud roar followed by a blast of swirling, bright green flame.

Everypony paused to look at the illusion, and the completeness of the phantasm was such that it exuded into every one of the little pony’s instinctual pores the primal fear all such magnificent predatory beasts generated. Even Trixie, who created the illusion and knew without a doubt its fake nature felt the stab of primal fear upon looking at the dragon’s deadly form and hearing its hungry, triumphant roar.

Suddenly her team didn’t seem to need further motivation to run, Raindrops and Ditzy taking to the air, the former sticking close to support the shaky flight of the later, and all the ponies on the ground scrambling for the gate, Octavia throwing not bothering to put her cello away and just carrying it along in one hoof as she hopped along with her other three legs.

Flam let out an exclamation of fright and the VTOL banked sharply away, the guns mounted on either side of its nose sending a burst of fire at the apparition of the dragon. Trixie, while running, focused and crafted changes in the illusion, making it look like the bullets were bouncing off the onyx scales of the dragon instead of just passing through, while at the same time sending it diving at the VTOL>

She had taxed her magic a tad too far, however, and couldn’t maintain her focus on the illusion and gallop effectively at the same time, and the illusion wavered as the dragon sprang onto the VTOL. The dragon burst like a soapy black bubble, puffs of blue smoke wafting away in the residual wind of Octavia’s summoned storm. The VTOL wavered about in the air for a few moments before it stabilized and Flam’s voice shouted over its speakers.

“W-why that was quite the convincing performance! Were circumstances different I’d be thinking of offering such a fine illusionist an opportunity to spend her talents elsewhere, but alas I think my ire is up and this game is near its conclusion! Brother is our targeting system cleaned out yet?”

“Just about done brother! A few measly worms and virus’ won’t last long against my countermeasures. We’ll have our missiles bak lickety-split before you can spit!”

The VTOL surged forward, chasing after the fleeing team, which had just passed the threshold of the facility ground’s gates and into the open road that led towards the dark trees of the Everfree Forest. Safety was literally in sight, but Trixie could tell the VTOL would easily catch up to them. Out in the open, with no cover, and her own magic near depleted, it seemed like there’d be little chance for them to make it to the treeline without being blasted apart by the recovered VTOL. Trixie started to consider using what little magic she had left to turn invisible and just dash off to the side, leaving the rest of the team to their fate to save herself, but she couldn’t do it. Not after seeing Ditzy get back on her hooves.

Trixie didn’t know what she could do, but abandoning the team wasn’t going to be it.

Fortunately she didn’t have to consider anything further, because as the ponies galloped across the open grass, leaving the road and heading for the nearest trees, there was a deep guttural roar of an engine and something came flying out of the treeline towards them. Carrot Top’s voice spoke happily over the comlink.

~”Go get ‘im Rabbit Buster!”~

The thing that tore across the field towards them looked to Trixie like some ridiculous cross between a armored dune buggy and a robotic dog, four canine legs mounted with huge thick wheels that led the drone skid and change direction on a hairpin as it bounded towards them. Its thick, bulbous main body was mostly taken up by a swiveling pair of turreted cannons, the rest being a low tapered head with a pair of gleaming robotic and slanted red eyes and floppy metal ears.

Trixie couldn’t even guess where Carrot Top got the time or parts to make such a thing and didn’t honestly care, as the drone Rabbit Buster opened fire upon the VTOL with a flying fusillade of gunfire that forced the VTOL to sharply bank away from its pursuit or risk getting one of its engines torn clean off.

The drone’s intervention bought Trixie and the others more than enough time to finish their full speed gallop across the open terrain to the treeline, where Carrot Top waited where they’d left her, the mare’s eyes closed in focus as she controlled her drones.

Ditzy landed alongside Raindrops, her eyes unfocused, her breathing labored, and sweat matting her yellow mane. Carrot Top’s eyes opened and she was quickly on her hooves, coming over to Ditzy.

“Take it easy Ditzy, I got some stims if you need ‘em.”

Ditzy shook her head, “No, no, I’m wiz. Perfectly wiz,” she wiped some blood from her nose, “Just looking forward to sitting down for awhile once we’re home.”

Trixie glanced back, watching the VTOL swing around and fire both its own heavy guns and a pair of missiles towards the speedily darting Rabbit Buster, the drone returning fire and blowing one of the missiles out of the air and narrowly avoiding the other that exploded right behind it.

“Leaving now would be good,” Trixie said.

Carrot Top frowned slightly, “RB’ll keep them busy for a bit, but he’s not equipped for prolonged fighting. He’ll buy us a few minutes, at most.”

Lyra shouldered her sniper rifle and gave Octavia a brief affirming look, which the other mare returned with a solemn nod. Lyra then turned to all of them, “Then let’s move. We get through the forest to where we left our van and get ourselves lost in the ‘Plex. Everypony stay frosty and focused; this run’s not quite done yet.”

Author's Notes:

I know some might be disappointed we don't really get to see Ditzy fight in cyberspace, but honestly when I tried to actually write that scene it made the chapter feel a tad bloated more than it already was, and broke up the physical action a bit too much. Heh, kind of like the way having to run decking is in the actual game if you have it going on at the same time as the real-flesh action. I still hope to have at least one future scene with Ditzy in the matrix though. We'll see.

Anyway, the run is near done, but as many a shadowrunner knows, its not over until you get paid. They might have Octavia, but what's the mystery with her apparently altered memory, and who was it that hired Lyra to get Octavia out of there in the first place? Answers, possibly, coming soon, maybe.

Chapter 5: How it Came to Be

View Online

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.”

Chapter 6: How it Gets Personal

View Online

Chapter 6: How it Gets Personal

“Insects?” Raindrops asked incredulously, and in a wavering tone that belied she might not entirely disbelieve either. Trixie could see the pegasus mare was unnerved, the way her mane and tail bristled.

Trixie was unnerved as well. Panicked might also be a better word for it, but she was quickly taking control of herself, taking deep breaths. Carrot Top was still next to her, with a hoof on Trixie’s shoulder and a worried look on her face. Trixie gave the other mare a nod to indicate she wasn’t freaking out anymore and said, “Those pegasi aren’t pegasi. Their astral forms… I don’t know what else to call them but insects. Like somepony took a nasty bug and mixed it up with a pony’s shape or something! I don’t know what they are. I’ve never even heard of such a thing.”

“Well, whatever our mysterious friends are,” said Cheerilee as she eyed one of the rear view mirrors, “They look like they’re about to come down to give us a friendly hello. Or shoot us. One or the other.”

Raindrops, who was looking out the back window of the van, narrowed her eyes and nodded agreement, “Yeah, that’s a pretty clear attack run formation. Drek. They're seriously going to pull this here in the middle of high security corp territory? These fraggers are brain burnt.”

Trixie heard Lyra sigh as the mare turned a hard corner along the corporate sector streets, “CT, take the wheel. Get us to the rendezvous no matter what. I don’t care who gets hit, just keep driving until we reach our destination.”

“O-okay,” said Carrot Top, not moving towards the driver’s seat but instead strapping herself into the seat behind it. She closed her eyes and settled down, and Trixie knew the mare was using her built in cyber rig to take wireless control of the van, replacing her own senses with that of the van’s and controlling it as if it were now her own body. Lyra took her hooves off the wheel and unbuckled, coming into the back passenger area, and the van kept going, now fully under Carrot Top’s control.

Lyra snatched up her sniper rifle in a glow of gold magical aura and joined Raindrops at the back of the van. Meanwhile Cheerilee had taken out her machine pistol and loaded a fresh clip, rolling down the passenger side window with one hoof as she did so. Ditzy tried to rise from where she’d been laying down, but Trixie sat next to the mare and put a hoof on her, shaking her head.

“You’d better just sit down,” Trixie said.

Ditzy’s face looked pale and tired, but those wall eyes of hers were filled with earnest intent, “I should help too. Help my friends.”

Trixie held back a groan. These shadowrunners really were crazy. Ditzy had just had the equitant of a minor stroke for Moon’s sake! And the mare still wanted to play gun-tag with a bunch of flying insect ponies! Trixie took a deep breath and held the pegsus down, which was a lot harder than it seemed from Ditzy’s slight form. The little gray mare had a lot of strength in her, and Trixie had to almost resort to magic to keep her in place.

“Trixie’s right,” Lyra said, “Just keep your head down Ditzy. You too, Trixie. Unless we need the magic, in which case I’ll call you up. Hoping we can scare these guys off with a few shots.”

“This is gong to get dicey,” said Cheerilee, “I can’t imagine whichever security contractor has jurisdiction here is going to be happy with a running gunfight in their streets.”

“Moot point, here they come!” growled Raindrops as the top of the van suddenly started making loud plinking sounds as bullets rained down upon it.

----------

Raindrops didn’t bother trying to control her breathing, though she could tell that Lyra noticed something was up with her. She just didn’t care. Adrenaline coursed through her beyond what even would be normal for her boosted artificial glands, and what she was feeling couldn’t even properly be called rage. It was an anger of such white hot intensity that it somehow broke through the emotional spectrum and left her feeling deathly calm.

After all this time could this really be the moment she found them!?

Years of searching, digging up every occult reference and clue she could track down, sacrificing her social life, abandoning her parents, disfiguring her body with cybernetics beyond what had been needed to replace the leg she lost that night.

That night…

”Snails! Snails get back! Don’t go near that thing!”

“They’re calling sis. I gotta go. She's calling. The song...”

"Frag me, Drops, what is that thing!?"

"What's with his eyes, theyre fraggin' glowing green?"

"Dash, shoot it! Snails don't go near it, just back away!"

"Sis, you should come too. Hear the song. Its pretty."

"He belongs to me, little ponies. He's always belonged to me."

“Don’t touch my brother you monster!”

The phantom pain still coursed through her left foreleg. It’d been torn clean off that night by the beast that’d taken her brother away. A creature that she’d only been able to describe as a giant, horrific insect in the shape of a pony.

It’d begun so simply, almost innocently. Snails, her little brother with his sweet smile and dopey laugh, had loved bugs. There’d been little doubt he’d follow in their mother’s hoofsteps as an entomologist. So nopony in the family, least of all Raindrops, had really paid it any mind when Snails started having more and more dreams about insects. It’d seemed pretty normal for him. After all he’d always go out of his way to go exploring around for new bugs, even if it meant wandering towards the nastier parts of town. Raindrops had gotten her first taste of fighting protecting her brother from slum toughs as he wandered around looking for neat city bugs to collect. She’d even joined a gang, the Dashers, just so her brother could walk around unmolested as a family member of one of the gang.

Those gang days hadn’t been so bad, though she’d butted heads more than once with the Dasher’s boss, a egotistical but admittedly quite capable flier by the name of Rainbow Dash. Dash’s gang ran almost all of the Ponyville Barrens, and while Raindrops wasn’t fond of gang life she was able to spare her family a lot of grief by being a part of it. Things had been good.

Then Snails had started having those dreams, and nopony, not even Raindrops, thought anything of it. Even when he started acting weird. Skipping school. Spacing out. Vanishing all day only for Raindrops to find him… almost nesting among the bugs. One day she’d found him in a dark back ally one night covered in bugs, just laying there in a slack jawed daze.

It had scared them all, Raindrops and her parents. They’d tried to get him help. Psychological at first, but it became quickly apparent that whatever was wrong with him wasn’t simply a matter of the mind. No, something magical was at work, and not the simple Equestrian magic of old… but the new kind of magic, Awakened magic.

Before they could bring in a proper Awakened mage or shaman to examine Snails the incident had happened. Snails had vanished one night. Not unusual in and off itself by that point, so Raindrops had gone to look for him like she always had, even calling in favors built up with the Dasher’s to help out with the search. Rainbow Dash herself had deigned to crawl off her cloud hideout to help out, even.

And they’d found Snails. Found him in the sewers beneath the Ponyville Barrens, just in time to see him approaching a horrible creature covered in black chitin, somewhat equine in shape, but with a unmistakable insect like appearance. Raindrops still remembered the beast’s holed legs, its pale green mane like slick slime, and a voice that resonated unnaturally in her mind.

”The little one is mine, ponies. He knows his Queen.

The memories faded from Raindrops as the bullets fell like steel hail upon the van. Carrot Top hadn’t built the Carrotmobile cheaply, however, the simple looking van actually armored with some of the best armor alloys available on the black market, and with its windows forged from thick bullet proof glass that’d take a cannon or missile to crack.

She could see out the window that there were ten ‘pegasi’ in plain black fatigues, likely armor-weave cloth, that had split into two wings of five. They were coming at the van from both sides, weaving between the overhangs, signs, and arches of the corporate towers around them. They were all armed with seemingly identical matte black assault rifles. While the van’s armor might hold, it’d still be a problem if any of those bastards hit a tire.

Lyra and she exchanged looks and Raindrops nodded, hefting her machine gun, tilting her head to the right to indicate she’d take that group. Sharp barking retorts sounding in rapid succession as Cheerilee opened fire from the passenger side window. Raindrops steadied herself on her hind hooves as Carrot Top took the van sharply to the left, then right, veering across the street to avoid the worst of the fire pelting them.

Lyra was now also on her hind hooves, and as one both she and Raindrops threw open the back doors of the van. Raindrops held her machine gun steadily in her fore hooves, bracing her hind legs as she took aim at the group of pegasi on the right just as they were cutting across the front of a glittering glass office building. Raindrops frowned, knowing that opening fire now some of her bullets would end up hitting that building. She just had to hope whatever corp owned that building had sprung for armored glass. Most did. Most.

She squeezed the trigger with her hoof and the machine gun bucked and jumped in her grip. The cybernetic limbs did their job well, the strength of the machinery easily keeping a tight and steady grip on the machine gun and keeping its aim from going off by too much as she wove a net of bullets through the air at the pegasi. The pegasi moved with shocking coordination, beyond what Raindrops would have expected from even well trained soldiers. The group moved as one, all banking simultaneously and diving below the stream of bullets from Raindrops. They leveled out almost hoof contact with the street and pursued straight behind the van, and Raindrops had to throw her own door closed quickly as bullets pelted her and the van. Armor and cybernetics did their work well, but Raindrops felt the impacts of a few of those assault rifle shots and grimaced at the pain as one managed to catch some of her flesh and blood hide.

Lyra’s shots came in steady rhythm, the mint unicorn mare’s gold eyes unblinking and filled with a concentrated, fierce light as she worked her sniper rifle with smooth efficiency. Raindrops kicked her own side of the back doors open again and lowered her machine gun, ignoring the way bullets tore at her mane as she sent a burst of fire straight at the pegasi flying behind them. She saw one already dropping from Lyra’s shots, the pegasus spinning away to plaster itself across a street sign… and Raindrops didn’t miss the fact that the blood that burst from that body wasn’t red, but a sickly, neon green.

She saw the same when her shots caught one of the other pursuing pegasi, the mare’s form spinning and jerking in the air as bullets tore holes through her, green blood spraying. Carrot Top pulled the van into a tight turn down small hill but before the body disappeared around the corner Raindrops saw the pegsus she’d shot seemed to be changing, green fire encompassing it to reveal a blackened form that Raindrops couldn’t quite see clearly but was certain was no pony.

So it is them! The ones that took my brother!

There was little doubt left in Raindrops’ mind, and she readied her machine gun for another pass, but at that instant there was a sound of sirens rapidly approaching and the unmistakable whine of VTOL rotors. Just as the pegasi rounded the corner to keep up pursuit a trio of small VTOL craft came rocketed from above the van. They were small, snub nosed affairs, their main rotors huge circles in the tail while smaller side rotors kept the VTOL’s stable, allowing the nose to sport dual tri-barreled rotary guns and spotlights, which snapped on the both illuminated the pegasi and the van. As the pegasi broke off and veered away a mare’s voice spoke over a loudspeaker from the VTOL’s.

“This is Silver Star Security! You are unauthorized in this area. Stand down and prepare-“

The pegasi opened fire on the VTOL’s, causing the mare on the speaker to curse, “Frack it! Ice ‘em, we’ll sort the bodies out later!”

Two of the VTOL’s opened fire on the pursuing pegasi. Two were caught in the fire, torn to shreds by the rotary guns, and the rest rapidly scattered in all directions, almost like cockroaches in Raindrops’ mind. However she couldn’t feel any satisfaction about seeing those bug monsters get slaughtered, as the third VTOL was now after the van and spitting rotary death at them. Lyra and Raindrops quickly shut the back doors, which shuddered under the impact of heavy rounds that were denting even the van’s armor.

“CT, how close are we!?” shouted Lyra.

“Nearly there!” said Carrot Top’s voice from a speaker on the van’s dashboard as her comatose body remained quiet and seated.

Raindrops was keeping an eye on the Silver Star Security VTOL, waiting for a lull in its fire so she could throw open the van and try and tag one of its engines, but even as she watched she spotted darting black forms. The pegasi were back and this time they’d dropped all pretense to disguise. The creatures had scattered by now swarmed back from the sides, faster than before. Their bodies were black, with four pony-like limbs, but many of them tipped in insect claws or pincers, and with faces that only somewhat resembled an equine shape, fanged jaws hissing as they dove upon the VTOL with translucent gossamer green wings.

The VTOL veered in the air as one of the monstrous insect creatures smashed at its cockpit window, not breaking through but still creating spidery cracks on the armored glass. Perhaps the creature might have eventually broken through or not, but it didn’t matter as the pilot had panicked and the VTOL’s sharp motion sent it towards the side of a nearby multi-story parking lot, the back tail engine snapping off in a shower of broken concrete, smoke, and flame. The VTOL went careening into the street below, smashing both vehicle and a few of the insect creatures that had remained on it, still attacking the doomed craft with single minded abandon until it smashed into the ground.

There was a thump on the roof and Raindrops looked up reflexively. Rapid scraping noises sounded across the roof and there was only a moment to realize where it was going and shout a warning.

“Cheerilee!” Raindrops shouted just as the magenta mare pulled back from the window, ducking aside as a black, scythe-like claw snapped down and tried to take Cheerilee’s head off. She ducked just in time but took a nasty cut on her brow as the horrible insect pony lowered its face into the window from above.

Up close it was even worse to look at. It had two blue glittering eyes, like tiny jewels, but these two eyes were joined by a dozen others at odd, twisted angles across its bulbous face. Its jaw unhinged unnaturally wide, with four fangs dripping a thick white fluid that couldn't have just been saliva. Its screech was unearthly, high pitched, and warbled with a tone that was… disturbingly musical, like a flute of violin terribly distorted beyond normal recognition.

“Oh buck this noise!” Cheerilee said as she shoved her machine pistol in the monster’s mouth, blood coating her face from her head wound, and pulled the trigger, sending over twenty rounds in a matter of seconds into the monster’s face. The full auto shots destroyed the beast’s face in a shower of green gore, and it fell away from the van, leaving Cheerilee coated in both its blood and her own.

“Augh! Gah!” Cheerilee wiped at her face, then at her chest, “It’s everywhere! Ugh, think some of it went up my nose!”

“Are you okay?” Lyra called back while peering out the back of the van, looking for more probably. Raindrops couldn’t see any more of the insect things chasing after them, but she remained wary, keeping a tight grip on her machine gun.

“Yeah… yeah, I’ll live,” said Cheerilee, already clambering into the back of the van to dig out a medkit from Carrot Top’s supplies to apple a slap patch to her head, the simple trauma aid designed to cover a wound and administer a number of contact medicines and stimulants for short term care. Raindrops hated using the things on head wounds, as they were basically as bad as duct tape to tear off later, and that usually meant a mane cut.

“Was that Silver Star Security I heard out there?” Trixie asked now that the danger seemed to have passed.

“Oh yeah,” said Raindrops, frowning, “Nasty, getting one of largest security firms in the country on us, but I doubt that were able to ID the van.”

“Nope,” sad Carrot Top’s voice over the van speaker, “This baby’s got fourteen different fake licenses and I’ve already switched them twice during the chase alone. Nopony’s gonna track this van down.”

“And…” Ditzy blinked a few times, as if she was dizzy, “And if they did, I could erase the data from SSS’ systems. We’ll be okay…”

Lyra came over, sitting next to Ditzy on the opposite side that Trixie was, and ran a hoof over the pegasus mare’s forehead, “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I’d like to keep you off the Matrix until we know you’re going to be alright. Getting your brain fried isn’t something to just shrug off, Ditz.”

Ditzy blew a little raspberry, laying back and sighing, “I’m fine. Really. You’re all just being big worry warts. This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten a little brain jolt from some jerk using a black program.”

Ditzy’s walled eyes seemed to focus for a second as they narrowed dangerously, “If I run into that guy again he’ll be in for a few surprises. Ditzy Doo doesn’t fall for the same tricks twice and I’ve seen his codework now. I can break it, next time.”

Raindrops couldn’t help but admire the mare’s spirit, even if she shared the same worries the others on the team did. Danger was part of the biz, and each of them knew anytime they went into a run that they might not all come back… but Lyra had kept the team together for a few years, which was a lot longer than most shadowrunning teams managed to keep going without any casualties. Raindrops wanted to see that trend continue, and out of all the mares on the team, she wanted to see Ditzy get hurt the least. The rest of them might’ve had family somewhere, but Ditzy’s daughter was her whole world, and from what Raindrops understood, Dinky would’ve been lost without her mother.

It made Raindrops wonder, not for the first time, what made Ditzy run the shadows.

She turned the thought aside. It wasn’t her business. They all had their reasons.

“We’re here, girls,” said Carrot Top, the van going dark as it entered a tunnel built into the side of the mountain. The tunnel street was bathed in blue lighting and soon split off into an exit that Carrot Top took that circled upward like a spiral. Within a few minutes they exited onto a tunnel that went straight to a pair of huge metal security doors.

Tension in the van increased, but it seemed clear this was where they were supposed to be. The massive blue crescent moon symbol of Moonrise Arcane Science and Technologies was plastered on the doors, and in front of them was a full team of ponies in cerulean security armor and armed to the horns. All of them were unicorns. Each was levitating weapons that looked to Raindrops like the kind of experimental laser weaponry she’d heard tell about but never actually seen.

One of the unicorns approached the van and held up a hoof, motioning them to pull forward and roll down their window. Carrot Top did so just as Lyra got back into the driver’s seat, and Carrot Top let her take over, blinking her eyes open and stretching with a yawn.

“Lyra Heartstrings?” asked a young stallions voice from behind a full helmet and silver face-plate that showed none of his features.

“That’s us,” Lyra said, “We have the package. Ran into some trouble on the way in-“

The stallion cut her off, “You can tell everything to my employer yourself. She wishes to see you immediately. I’m to escort you through at once.”

At his words the large metal doors rumbled as they split open and revealed a sizable elevator meant for cargo vehicles. The stallion walked alongside the van as Lyra drove it into the elevator, the other guards standing aside to let them pass. Once the doors closed again and the elevator shuddered slightly as it began to move, the stallion wreathed his helmet in a glow of magic and removed it.

A two toned blue mane spilled out, frame a white coat and handsome, if young face. The stallion’s eyes were harder than his years, though. Raindrops had come up to the front of the van and noticed the distaste in the stallions’ gaze as he looked at Lyra, then at her.

“What?” Raindrops asked in a challenging tone.

The stallion blinked, then shook his head, “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Raindrops snorted. Like drek it was nothing! This guy was looking at her and the rest of the team like they were parasprites that’d just eaten his morning corn flakes! She was about to press the issue when Lyra just put an arm on hers and shook her head.

Raindrops bit back her anger and sat on her haunches, arms crossed over her barrel as she waited for this job to be done with.

----------

Lyra was tired, and still tense from the run, but it was nearly over. This part, anyway. But it was a big step, one she’d been desperate to have happen for years. She glanced back where Octavia was being carried rather gently by Carrot Top while the rest of her team filed in behind her, following the white stallion as he led them through the front doors of a massive office building.

This wasn't M.A.S.T’s main tower, but rather one of the side towers built from the side of the Canterhorn, a black glittering spire that served as a hub for the aerial transit station that cargo elevator they’d gone through before led to. It was an out of the way part of the company’s holdings but still maintained an air of power, grandeur and wealth. An artificial garden had led from the stairs they’d taken up after dropping off the van in an underground parking lot. Trees lined a broad marble sidewalk with fountains spaced at regular intervals.

The front doors of the office were a chrome line in the otherwise obsidian glass front of the building, and once inside it was like entering a strange world of sharp angles and onyx architecture, punctuated by lines of glowing electric blue lighting. Reminded her of the one time she’d ever gone to Las Pegasus and checked out the Luxor. Bon Bon had gotten more of a kick out of the casino styled after the ancient Griffin Kingdoms, complete with sky jousting.

Lyra fought back the painful clench in her heart. She’d rescued Octy, but Bon Bon… her Bon Bon, that was a job still to come. If her employer kept to her word and helped her find where Bon Bon was.

She thought it odd that no security detail was here to relieve them of their weapons, or that there was any extra guards other than this blue maned stallion… but she supposed given that nature of the pony they were delivering Octavia too there was no need for further security. After all what kind of threat would they be to an alicorn like Luna herself?

Lyra was a tad nervous. She’d only been contacted by Luna through secondary channels and hadn’t realized the midnight blue pegasus mare who’d been the “Miss Johnson” for the job had actually been the alicorn herself until she’d revealed it to impress upon Lyra the sincerity of her offer to help find Bon Bon. Lyra still didn’t know Luna’s motivations for the offer, however, or why she wanted Octava. And Lyra didn’t care. As long as Luna kept her end of the bargain, that’s all that really mattered to Lyra.

They were led to yet another elevator that took them up nearly to the top of the tower by Lyra’s estimate. It opened up into a large, luxuriously furnished lounge big enough to serve a score of ponies with room to spare. The far end of the room was dominated by a slanted window wall that gave a stunning view of the corporate district this side of the Canterhorn. Lrya could see the blinking lights of VTOLs swarming about the lower buildings like fire flies. Probably Silver Star Security still buzzing about after the chase no more than a half hour ago.

“Take seats here,” the white stallion said, nodding towards a trio of thick, blue, plush couches set up in a triangular pattern in the middle of the room around a black, circular table. Lyra could see platters of food and pitchers of iced drinks set out already. Lyra glanced back at her team, many of whom still sported wounds both big and small from the run.

“Certainly, but could you maybe have a few medical ponies come up here? Some of us are pretty beat up and could use some attention.”

The stallion’s eyes flashed and he frowned, “You’ll be taken care of if and when the words is given,” he began, but another voice cut him off, one that was strong, resonant, and unmistakably feminine.

“Consider the word given, Shining Armor.”

At the far end of the room, directly in front of the windows, there was a shimmer of air and a smoke like cobalt blue aura of magic crept up from the black carpet. It swirled and danced in the air, its dark blue depths sparkling with the twinkles of starlight, until the smoke parted to reveal a tall, regal form. Twice the size of any normal pony, Luna, CEO of Moonrise Arcane Science and Technologies, was an imposing sight. Her deep midnight blue coat was lustrous under the room’s florescent lighting, even where her coat turned into a inky splotch of pure black where her cutie mark of a white crescent moon could be seen. Her mane was a cerulean shred of mystical energy that wavered in the air like a haze, specked with starlight. Turquoise eyes gazed at Lyra and her team with unblinking depth, somehow radiating authority, power, kindness, and understanding all at once. Massive wings spread to either side of her, looking less like a threat and more like a comforting, welcoming gesture.

It was easy to see why this mare had once been all but worshiped as a goddess, and had ruled the old nation of Equestria as its Princess. Lyra could only imagine what the older sister was like before her fall and banishment to the sun. Either way it was all to clear to Lyra that, even though she’d cast aside the title of Princess, that Luna was still very much the ruler. Every inch of her bespoke of regal strength and authority.

If this mare really wanted to… drek, she could frackin’ have Equestria still. The corps couldn’t stop her, Lyra thought. Or at least that was the impression Luna gave off.

The stallion, Shining Armor, bowed deeply, in a gesture that certainly wasn’t the kind you’d give a CEO, and said, “As you command. I’ll go inform the medical staff immediately.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Luna said and the stallion turned curtly and marched from the room, leaving Lyra and her team with the alicorn. No other CEO in the world would want to be left alone with a shadowrunner team, no guards or security about. With Luna it was clear no such precautions were needed.

Luna smiled at them, “I apologize for his manner. Shining Armor is the Captain of my security forces and as such he’s had plenty of contact with members of your profession, only on the other side of the playing field, as it were. Please, do sit. I have ensured the very best medical ponies in the nation are present here in case you suffered any serious injuries during this task you have performed for me. The food and drink as well, are the best I can provide. Make yourselves comfortable, I wish for you to be at ease.”

It took them a moment but soon enough they were all seated in the couches, which not only turned out to be just as comfortable as they looked, but Lyra wouldn’t have been surprised if there was some kind of enchantment woven into the fabric to make them instantly start to sooth her aches and pains, draining tension straight out of her body. Practically all of the mares let out sighs of relief to one degree or another, especially Trixie who seemed to all but melt into her seat.

“Oh sweet Luna’s rump this feels good…” Trixie said, eyes nearly closing as if she were about to drift off to sleep, only to snap open as she realized what she’d just said and in whose presence, “That is to say that this couch is extremely comfortable and in no way reminds me of any particular part of any individual’s body that is commonly theorized to be quite plush… you’re going to banish me to the sun, aren’t you?”

Luna’s expression barely changed aside from a slight quirk at the corners of her lips that might have been the start of a smirk, “Not to worry, I think I can forgive you,” now she very clearly was smirking, “This time.”

Lyra had sat next to Octavia, who was still very much asleep, and she made sure that the earth pony mare was propped up in what would be a comfortable position. Octavia shifted, murmuring in her sleep, and Lyra gave Trixie a questioning look, “How long will she be out?”

Trixie, who still looked half terrified of Luna, glanced over, blinking, “Huh? Oh, right. A few hours at least. She’ll be fine. At least in that regard. Still have no idea what was done to her.”

“I may be able to explain that,” said Luna, coming over to stand before the table between the couches, giving the mares all a solemn look, finally resting her eyes on Lyra, “I believe its it’s time to, as you shadowrunners would say, ‘get down to biz’.”

The alicorn’s horn glowed with dark blue magic and from thin air appeared six thin, black plastic cylinders with circuitry laced through them. Luna floated one to each mare, “Six certified credsticks each containing your individual fees for the completion of the task you agreed to. You may feel free to check them to ensure they contain the correct balance.”

Lyra set her credstick aside, “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

Luna nodded, as if she had expected as much, “Very well. For five of you, then, that concludes our business. Once you feel you have been sufficiently treated by my medical staff you may depart at your convenience. I extend my personal gratitude for your hard work, and will certainly keep you in mind for future tasks if you’re willing.”

“Wait,” said Carrot Top, “Five of us? What does that mean?”

“It means that I still have business here besides getting paid,” said Lyra, looking over at Carrot Top with a slightly apologetic look as she gestured at Octavia, “I need to not only make sure Octy is going to be okay, but Luna has promised to help me find Bon Bon, as long as I help her out more in turn.”

“Hold up a sec,” said Raindrops, a blunt frown on her face, “You plan on just skipping out on the team, now?”

Lyra held back a sigh, taking a deep breath and forcing a calm look on her face, “I have to do this. I’m not abandoning the team permanently; I’m just taking care of some personal business first. I don’t expect you to understand.”

Raindrops’ frown slowly slipped away as the mare looked at her metallic, cybernetic hooves, mane obscuring her eyes, “Thing of it is… I do understand. If you’d just come out and told us about your old marefriend and this Octavia pony then I would’ve fracking offered to help you out between jobs. I’m still pissed at you for letting this personal affair get mixed up in our biz without trusting us enough to just tell us what was going on. Now that we’re here, I get it, okay? I get why you did this. Doesn’t mean I agree with how.”

“Raindrops, I-”

“No, Lyra. You used us. Yeah, we’re shadowrunners. Getting used is the damned job description, but you shouldn’t have screwed with our trust like that,” Raindrops said, then raised her head, eyes meeting Lyra’s. She could see that there was an entire flood of emotions the cybered-up mare was holding back, not just anger, but an intense sadness that caught Lyra off guard.

“I can’t speak for the others, but for me it’s gonna take awhile before you really earn my trust back for not telling us why you took this job. But… I do understand it. I know what it is to have ghost in your past that’s driving you in the shadows. That’s why I’m sticking with you Lyra, because after what we saw chasing us out there, I know I got a personal stake in this now, too.”

Lyra cocked her had, still feeling guilt weight on her from Raindrops’ words, but now also curious. She’d known that Raindrops was a very private mare who’d never really opened up to the team beyond a professional respect. She’d not once talked about anything personal beyond basic small talk, and even that kind of talk had always been dry from the jasmine pegasus. Lyra didn’t know anything about her personal life or past, or what had driven her into the life of a shadowrunner. The others leaned forward as well. Except for Trixie, who just looked uncomfortable with the conversation and was lightly fidgeting in her seat.

“Well, you going to keep us in suspense or actually elaborate on that?” asked Cheerilee, sitting on the edge of the couch as she leaned forward and looked sidelong at Raindrops, who was seated on the same couch. Raindrops frowned, looking between them, then settling her gaze on Luna, who merely met Raindrops’ eyes with a steady look that was both patient and welcoming.

Raindrops drew in a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, “I don’t know what those insect monsters were, but I know that they’re the ones that foalnapped my brother three years ago. Luna, if you know anything about those bugs, then I want to know about it. If there’s any way you can help me track down my little brother the way you’re helping Lyra with finding her marefriend, then I want in. I don’t care what it costs me. I’ll take on any debt you care to name. Just… help me. It’s been three years and I’ve found nothing. I can’t keep telling my parents the same line, ‘sorry, nothing yet’ each damned month.”

Luna was silent for a moment, then she closed her eyes and lowered her head, “I will accept your offer, young Raindrops. I will not ask a great debt from you other than the willingness to perform one more task, the same I ask of Lyra Heartstrings. Do that, and you have my oath as Luna Equestris that I will spare no resource or effort in restoring your brother to you.”

Lyra could see that Raindrops was trembling slightly, even her usually still cybernetic limbs, and it took her a moment to realize the mare was holding back tears as she said, “Just one job? You’ve got it. I don’t even care what it is.”

“Very well, then allow me to explain just what this next job entails and what it is I… we, are fighting.”

Luna’s horn glowed once more and now images began to take shape above the table with the still mostly untouched food and drink. Carrot Top and Ditzy had grabbed some, but the others had not. The images that formed were off the bug like pony shaped monstrosities they’d run into just a short time ago. They came in many shapes and sizes, the most common almost looking like proper ponies if not for the black chitin and fangs.

“When the world Awakened to the new magic many things changed,” Luna said, “Our world became merged with that of another, whose rules of magic differed from our own. You’ve spent your whole lives seeing the growing ripples of change that resulted from this Awakening. Trixie Lulamoon as an Awakened mage can manipulate the mana of the Astral Plane to create spells beyond conventional unicorn magic. Octavia as a shaman has contact with a spirit guide that grants her similar magical powers. New and strange creatures have appeared all over the world such as the Yetis of the northern mountains and the mysterious couatls of south Cavallia. And… these creatures as well. The Changelings.”

The images vanished, to show a map of Equestria, focusing on a southern part of the continent that consisted largely of dry, barren deserts, “The Badlands, an unpleasant place even before the Awakening, was where the first encounter with Changelings occurred. Before the Awakening.”

“Wait,” said Raindrops, “Are you saying these things were around before the Awakening?”

“Yes, albeit in a simpler, less dangerous form,” said Luna, “The Changelings were a mystery then, as they are now. Our limited contact with them left far more questions than answers. However they were not deemed a threat because they did not seem interested in expanding, and as long as they seemed content to remain in the Badlands there was little reason to pay them any mind.”

“And that changed with the Awakening, did it?” asked Cheerilee, rubbing her chin, “Just like everything else in the world, these Changelings, heh, changed.”

“Yes, though there is nothing humorous about that change,” said Luna, her magical illusions creating a new image. This one was of the almost normal looking Changeling, with its mostly pony shape and simple pair of eyes, with only a few holes in its leg and a little curved horn on its head. Next it… appeared a horrific creature, a giant twisted insect that looked like someone had taken a wasp and bloated it outward with cancer and mutated it to have too many legs.

“Of the many spirits that now touch our world from the Awakening... none are more dangerous than the Insect Spirits,” said Luna, “They, like other shamanistic spirits, have the ability to bond with a mortal to create a shaman. However unlike other spirits these Insect Spirits are aggressive and can infest those who wouldn’t normally have any tie to the Astral Plane, as long as the proper rituals are used. They can infect dreams, and twist minds. They have done this with the Changeling race.”

The two images merged and the Changeling altered into the kind of monstrosity the mares had fought during the recent chase.

“To what degree we do not know for certain, but we do know that the Insect Spirits are seeking to spread, to create new hives, and are using the Changelings as… hosts, partners, allies… I don’t know.”

Luna’s eyes narrowed and took on a dangerous, icy sheen, “All I know is that I do not intend to allow them to continue unchecked. There is so little yet known about these creatures, but they can be fought. And that is what we intend to do.”

The images now changed to a topographic map of a desert area, more fertile and plant strewn than the Badlands. It was the Mild West, an area Lyra recognized as not being too far from Appleloosa.

“Aurora Heavy Industries, which I have reason to suspect is infiltrated by Insect Spirit possessed Changelings, has recently constructed a large airfield on this mesas, fifty kilometers outside the limits of the Appleossa Metroplex. My spies have uncovered evidence that this airfield is actually a staging ground for a new hive. I intend to destroy this hive. I want your help in dong that.”

The gathered mares were quite for a time, then Raindrops said, “My brother… he was taken by a Changeling that called itself a Queen.”

“There are several, but its not impossible that one might have taken a personal hoof in acquiring more… shamans, for her hive. If your brother was Awakened and a suitable host to be an insect shaman, then he could be at this new hive. It takes multiple shaman to mystically prepare an area to be suitable for Insect Spirits to reside, so if forming a new hive there would be a concentration of shaman’s there.”

Raindrops bit her lower lip, her next words a quiet hiss, “Can he be… saved?”

At Luna’s nod it seemed Raindrops had all the air let out of her.

“It is not a simple process, but the few times we’ve recovered those shamans that have been taken by the Insect Spirits we were able to remove the possessing spirit and allow the shaman to recover their normal selves. It is not a easy path, but it can be done. Now… Lyra, I understand your fiance, Miss Bon Bon, was also taken many years ago.”

Lyra nodded, “Yes. Do you think she’s also…?”

Luna didn’t immediately answer, instead using her magic to create a new image, this one a close up set of pictures of the airfield stretching across a wide desert mesas. The images showed a number of ponies being unloaded from a cargo plane and being shuffled along towards a bunker. Among the ponies was a zoomed in image of a beige mare with a two toned mane of blue and pink.

Lyra shuddered, leaning forward, and felt the tears in her eyes, “Bon Bon…” she reached out to touch the image. Her fiance, her Bon Bon, was wearing a simple grey jump suit, as if she were some kind of technician. Most the rest of the ponies in the group were similarly dressed. She had such a lifeless, glassy look in her eyes it filled Lyra with both anguish and anger in equal measure.

“What happened to her?”

“The Changelings may be allied or controlled by the Insect Spirits, but they remain Changelings. They seem to lack certain skills of their own and use ponies and other creatures as laborers. I suspect that the Changelings, when they took Octavia, took Bon Bon as well and have been using her in that capacity since then; brainwashed to do their bidding. It is reversible, if we can get her and those other ponies away from that hive.”

Lyra nodded firmly, then glanced at Octavia, “Why did the need Octy? Why take her in the first place?”

“Was wondering that myself,” said Carrot Top, “Doesn’t make any sense to snatch a musician.”

“Maybe they just like good music?” suggested Ditzy with a half serious smile, which quickly faded, “I guess not.”

“Actually,” said Luna, “That isn’t entirely inaccurate, Miss Doo. The Changelings, from what we’ve learned from a few autopsies and interrogations, seem to react to sound and smell in different ways than most sapient races. Music especially seems to play a key role in the way higher Changelings control lesser ones. Harmonics are very important to the way they interact with the world.”

“Okay, neat, but what’s that got to do with Gray over here?” asked Raindrops, gesturing at the still sleeping Octavia.

“Octavia is a prodigy,” said Luna, “Her talent with music is truly something rare, even in this day and age. Her ability to naturally understand sound and its effect on the world around her was earning her note in both art circles… and scientific circles, before her graduation. Aurora Heavy Industries is, as said, under the thumb of the Changelings. Among the company’s ventures has been the acquisition of a certain group of artifacts that, if they learned how to control them, could prove to be one of the only things that could counter a being powerful enough to cause the Changelings trouble.”

“What artifacts?” asked Lyra.

“The Elements of Harmony,” said Luna with a deathly seriousness.

“What…? Like… that fairy tale legend about how you banished your sister using a bunch of candy colored rocks?” asked Cheerilee, blinking.

Luna’s face was stone as she said, “No fairy tale. The Elements of Harmony are real. After I used them to banish my sister to the sun, the stones became inert and I… in my grief over the loss of the one who was most dear to me, lost track of the stones.”

“Wait, you lost track of them?” blurted Carrot Top, “The most powerful magic known to ponydom, and you just kind of left them laying around and forgot where?”

A huff escaped Luna as she looked at the floor, “I was distraught! For a hundred years. A serious drinking binge. You can’t expect me to just remember where I set a bunch of rocks after a century of hard drinking and grieving!”

“Okay, okay,” said Lyra, “So after you lost these Element thingies, fast forward to now and A.H.I has them?”

“Some of them, at least,” said Luna, composing herself, “I don’t know if they have the entire set or just a few. But even one would be a problem. And that is what they had Octavia working on. You see, the Elements of Harmony respond to many different types of… well, harmony. They can be activated by a number of methods, all representing different kinds of harmony. One of those methods is music. The right symphony, the right harmonious melody, could cause the Elements to activate. That is why they took Octavia Philharmonica and tampered with her mind to make her one of their researchers. I don’t doubt to do a proper job of it that a Changeling Queen did the job of brainwashing her. If A.H.I was able to succeed at unlocking the Elements then they’d have a weapon powerful enough to defeat even me… and then there’d be little to stand against the Changelings in their bid to spread all over the world.”

“Well… drek…” said Raindrops, shaking her head, “So this next job’s to strike a blow against monsters literally trying to take over the world? I just want my brother back. If I got to do this to get him, then fine, I’m in. I’ll do whatever it takes to save Snails.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Luna, “With you and Miss Heartstrings on board I believe you’ll provide a great deal of help to the operation. As for the rest of you mares, I can’t ask you to endanger yourselves further, as you have no personal stake in this, so-“

“Hold up there big blue,” said Cheerilee, raising a hoof, which caused Luna to blink in surprise and regard the magenta mare with something akin to shock. Lyra got the impression Luna wasn’t used to being interrupted. Cheerilee continued as if she didn’t notice the alicorn’s surprise, “I don’t know about everypony here, but there’s no chance I’m letting two of my team jet off on a job this crazy without me there to back them up. No way, no how am I missing this.”

“I’m with Cheerilee on this one,” said Carrot Top, folding her arms across her barrel and leaning back in her seat, “I don’t think I’d be sleeping well tonight if I knew Lyra and Rains were fighting crazy spirits and monsters without me there to make sure they got back in one piece. Actually I don’t think I’d sleep well knowing there were things like this out there and I wasn’t giving my all to stop them. On top of that half of Raindrops’ cybernetics have had custom work done on them by me, and I’m the only one who can perform decent maintenance on them. So, yeah, what Cheerilee said. You girls go, I go too.”

Ditzy raised a weary hoof, “Ditto.”

Lyra frowned, “Ditzy, isn’t your daughter waiting at home for you?”

Ditzy winced, glancing away for a second before meeting Lyra’s eyes, “I know. My little muffin is a good filly can knows her mommy works hard for her future. And that’s what I’m doing. I… don’t want to work with another team. I’m not really all that good at this shadow stuff, really, and you’re the one who pulled us all together Lyra. If I lost you, if I lost any of you, I don’t know what I’d do. Oh, and insect monsters sound pretty bad. A good mom can’t let such things just walk around free when they might hurt my muffin. I’ll help out however I can… uh… that is if Miss Luna is okay with that. Or more specifically, Miss Luna and her army of highly trained and well armed guard ponies.”

Cheerilee blanched, “Yeah, I guess this is all contingent on her not just throwing us out on our tails, isn’t it?”

Luna coughed, “Well, yes, it is. Good of you to realize that. As it happens, however, I’m not adverse to keeping Miss Heartstring’s team together, as you have certainly shown yourselves to be capable as a group. Including you, Miss Lulamoon.”

Trixie started, nearly jumping from her seat, her eyes wide, “What? Me?”

Luna smiled in a calming manner and Lyra noticed the alicorn looked at Trixie with an almost… overly interested and intense gleam in her eyes.

“Yes, you. I am glad to see that my suggestion to Lyra Heartstrings was one she decided to follow up on.”

Lyra smiled apologetically, rubbing the back of her head as Trixie looked over at her, “Yeah, well… sorry Trixie, Luna was the one who named dropped you. I, uh, actually lied about remembering you from college. I mean, I did after Luna mentioned you for the job, but I’d totally spaced out on who you were up until then.”

Trixie’s face scrunched up in indignant anger and she turned her nose up, “I see. Well, I suppose I’ll count myself lucky that Luna recalled my talents and decided to recommend me.”

She blinked, then looked at Luna, “Why? Why recommend me to Lyra?”

“Because I keep a close eye on the progress of my students who do so well in my classes,” said Luna with a small wink, “And I recalled you as being particularly bright, if a tad… frivolous and trying. I was aware of your less then successful career as a private investigator and thought perhaps you might be interested in a taste of a different career, so I suggested you to Lyra as a possible mage to hire for the job.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” said Trixie, who then flicked her tail, shaking her head, “Wait, your student? When was I ever your student? You only run the Academy, yes? You don’t teach classes!”

Luna chuckled, a comforting, musical chime, “Not in a form anypony would recognize, at any rate.”

That seemed to rock Trixie back a bit as the unicorn just sat back in her couch and seemed to deflate into it. Luna went on to say, “So, Trixie Lulamoon, what will you do now? The rest of this team has agreed to assist in destroy this hive. What of you?”

Trixie just looked up, “I…” she looked around at the other mares, seemingly at a loss, but then she straightened and said, “I was only in this for the one job. One job, and out. I’m… sorry, but really, you don’t need me for more, right? If I want I can just walk, yes?”

Luna nodded slowly, betraying not emotion other than simple, confident calm, “You may. You have fulfilled your end of the job and have your payment. You can leave at your convenience.”

“You did better than I could have hoped,” Lyra told Trixie, smiling at the mare with genuine gratitude, “You got a real knack for this biz, chum, so anytime you feel like taking a stroll into the shadows again, I can give you a number to contact me with.”

Trixie looked away, “No offense, but this all is way too crazy for me. I get why the rest of you want to do this, but me? There’s nothing personal in this for me. It’d just be another pay day, assuming Luna’s even paying anypony for this.”

“I would be compensating all who go with twice the amount provided for the previous job,” Luna stated flatly, which did cause Trixie’s ears to twitch furiously.

“F-fifty thousand… bits…?” Trixie asked, and Luna nodded, but Trixie shook her head, “No. Not even for that amount. Those Insect Spirits, or Changelings, or whatever, were some of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen. Walking into a nest of them is suicide, even with the help of an alicorn and a major company’s security forces.”

“It’s okay Trixie,” said Lyra, trotting over to give the other unicorn a sudden hug, which Trixie seemed surprised at, but didn’t resist, “You already did more than I could’ve asked and nopony is asking you to do more. Go on home. When it’s all done, I’ll give you a buzz and maybe sometime we can grab drinks together.”

“I…” Trixie sighed, hugging Lyra back, “I wouldn’t mind that.”

----------

The elevator opened up then and Shining Armor returned, now with a small cadre of ponies wearing medical clothing and carrying with them bags of supplies and rolling alone a gurney for Octavia. Trixie took that as her cue to leave, standing and quickly bowing to Luna, “Thank you for the hospitality. I, uh, don’t have a ride home.”

“I will arrange one of my personal VTOLs to take you back to your home,” said Luna with a warm smile. Trixie tried to hide her face from the others, even as they all gave her farewells that lacked scorn or malice. None of them were accusing her of cowardice or calling her a wimp. Some part of her wished they would. She knew she was doing the right thing, backing out now while she was still ahead of the game, but it just… was leaving a sour feeling in her stomach.

“It was a blast, Trix, we ought to do it again sometime,” said Cheerilee with a grin, and tossing a black felt pen she’d suddenly drawn from seemingly nowhere, “You still got a little ink on your face, by the way.”

Trixie blushed, rubbing at her muzzle, recalling how the mare quite possibly had doodled on her face during the run on the A.H.I research facility when Trixie had left her body behind to send her spirit into the Astral Plane. Cheerilee just chuckled at the display and Carrot Top raised a wine glass she’d been sipping from in Trixie’s direction.

“Seriously, if you ever want to do another run, we’d be happy to have you,” Carrot Top said with a friendly smile.

“Next time I’ll cook some muffins for us all to eat before the run,” said Ditzy as some of the medical ponies started to check her over.

Raindrops just closed her eyes, not looking at Trixie, or saying anything. Trixie almost appreciated that, because the friendly goodbyes from the others were tearing at her as she just sort of smiled awkwardly, mumbled something that might have been a goodbye, and hurried towards the elevator.

----------

Trixie was still feeling out of sorts an hour later. She’d been in a rush to leave, but she’d still had a gunshot wound in her leg and a host of lesser injures. The doctors at the M.A.S.T office had insisted on treating her before she’d been loaded onto a very comfortable and well armed jet black VTOL that had taken her back to the commercial district where her office/apartment was located. It’d dropped her off a few blocks away and she’d walked the rest of the way, eyes barely scanning the various pop-up ads that ran across her AU contacts. She’d turned her comlink back to a semi-active mode and as she did so she realized she had a few personal messages. One was from her landlord, threatening that if she didn’t get her rent by tomorrow that she’d set Trixie’s stuff out on the street and light it on fire. Another was from Pokey Pierce, inquiring as to when/if she’d ever get a job, and maybe pay him.

There was also one message from her aunt back in Neigh Orleans. It was a rather long text asking how Trixie was doing and when she might get the time to come back for a visit. It made Trixie realize she hadn’t gone back to her hometown in… a long time.

Her office apartment was unlocked when she got to it, and for a second that made Trixie tense up with fear, until she heard a familiar voice humming inside.

“Pokey?” she called as she stepped inside, her eyes blinking rapdly in surprise at the place. Was this really her room!? It was… clean! All the old soynoodle cartons and empty beer cans had been cleaned away. She could actually see her own carpet!

Pokey Pierce, the blue stallion’s creme mane tied up by a simple kerchief as his horn glowed, working a vacuum, glanced up at her arrival. He gave her an utterly rueful smile and dry chuckle.

“Wondering where you’ve been. This place was a frackin’ sty. Can’t imagine how you put up with it.”

“Cleaning drones are busted…” she said as she stepped deeper into the place, looking about. It seemed Pokey had dusted everything down and cleaned the tables, her desk, and even given the walls a once over with a rag.

“I know. Figured you’d never clean up on your own so I took some initiative,” Pokey said, shaking his head, “Date was a bust today and needed to work off some nervous energy. So hard to find a good stallion these days. Anyway, this isn’t all altruism on my part. Wanted to buck you about my pay. You know, because I’ve been your assistant and all. Its not a volunteer position you know! I actually tracked down some job leads for you. I can download them to your comlink.”

“I…uh, thanks,” Trixie said, flopping down on her couch, which now that she’d felt the couches in Luna’s meeting room her own felt almost like sitting on hard concrete by comparison.

She must have still looked more than a little out of sorts because Pokey rather quickly shut off the vacuum and looked at her with a mix of curiosity and concern.

“You look like you’ve been through a rough night. Just what have you been up to?”

Trixie suddenly laughed, having a hard time controlling it as she said, “Oh, nothing, just got hired for a shadowrun against a major corporation that turns out to be infested by horrible insect spirits from the great beyond and Luna herself asked me to help her exterminate a hive of them down by Appleoosa. Oh, by the way, I have plenty of bits to pay off what I owe you now and then some, so feel free to stop bugging me about that. So how was your day? A bad date you say?”

Pokey blinked at her for a second, then sighed and started putting the vacuum away, “I’ll come back when you’re feeling less snarky and crazy.”

Trixie sighed and stood up, “Wait, Pokey. I said wait dammit!”

He paused, looking at her as she whipped out the credstick Luna had given her. She didn’t bother asking as she swiped the credstick over her comlink, downloading the funds to her own personal account, then with a few easy taps of icons in her AU she transferred a balance of not only the bits she owed Pokey for the work he’d done already, but gave him a month’s advance and a tidy bonus on top of it.

His own comlink would have buzzed him an alert of the funds transfer into his account and she could see Pokey’s eyes widen as his own contact lenses provided an AU icon showing the new balance.

“I…uh… Trixie?”

Trixie smiled, more than a little smugly, “Believe me now?”

“I believe you got bits from somewhere, at least,” he said, then shook his head, laughing under his breath, “Guess you get to keep me as an assistant for a little longer. So, seriously though, what were you doing all night?”

Trixie just stared at him levelly. He stared back, then frowned.

“You’re being serious?”

Trixie shrugged, “Would I make something like that up?”

“Yes,” he said without miss a beat.

“Okay, fine, but this time, for once, I’m telling the truth. Believe it or not I got roped into an actual shadowrun.”

Pokey gave a low whistle, “A good paying one, too, it seems. Well, that mean you’re quitting the legit business of a P.I or what?”

Trixie shook her head, “I… don’t think I really enjoyed my taste of life in the shadows. Not nearly a fun as the trid-programs make it out to be.”

“Hey, Shadows Over Canterlot is a great show!” Pokey said with a smirk.

“Yeah, it also doesn’t cover how much it hurts getting shot, or how terrifying it is,” Trixie said firmly, plopping back down on the couch, her hooves hanging out to the side as she let herself sink into it and she stared at the ceiling, “I really don’t want to make a lifestyle of it. Adrenaline rush or not.”

“Oh? So you did enjoy something about it?” asked Pokey, leaning against her desk and raising an eyebrow at her.

“I didn’t say that!” Trixie said, huffing, “I just said it was a bit of an adrenaline rush. Besides, if I liked anything about the whole terrifying experience it was just…”

Her mind turned towards thoughts of the team she’d worked with. Lyra’s steadfastness and calm leadership. Cheerilee’s sassy antics. Ditzy’s oddness but open friendliness. Carrot Top’s easy smile and deep concern for her team’s well being. Even Raindrops’ surly nature left a fond memory in Trixie’s mind.

“…I guess I kind of liked the ponies I ended up working with,” Trixie said.

“But not enough to do another shadowrun,” Pokey said.

Trixie didn’t immediately answer that time. She was thinking of them again. Thinking of Lyra and how much she clearly loved that Bon Bon mare. It was obvious that loyalty like that would drive Lyra to do anything to save her fiance, even if it got her killed. Raindrops was the same. Trixie remembered those intense eyes of the cyber enhanced pegasus and knew that if it meant saving her brother that Raindrops would tear herself apart. And the others would do the same to help their friends. Ditzy, even having a daughter waiting for her, would risk everything for her teammates. Carrot Top and Cheerilee would do the same, Trixie knew.

Because those mares were all friends. They might have tried to act professional at times, especially Raindrops, but the bottom line was that all of them worked so well together because they were friends with each other.

And was I also their friend…? Trixie wondered.

She nearly fell off her couch as she noticed Pokey was right in front of her, waving a hoof before her face.

“Hellooo? Equestria to Trixie?”

“Gah! Don’t do that!”

“Heh, well, don’t space out in the middle of a conversation,” Pokey said, leaning back and sitting on his haunches. He looked at her with a curiously intense expression that made Trixie feel a spike of self-consciousness and she drew back.

“W-what are you starring at?” she knew that Pokey preferred stallions, so she didn’t know what he thought he was looking at.

He got this knowing smile on his face and stood up, heading for the door, “Nothing. Thanks for the pay, boss. Guess you’re going to be pretty busy for a bit, but give me a call anytime you need help with the P.I end of things. I’ll talk to you later. Just take care of yourself.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, but he was already out the door, leaving her alone with her thoughts. She settled back on the couch, starring at the flat trid-screen mounted on her wall. Without really thinking about it she clicked it on and watched a few random channels.

Infomercials. Sappy drama show. That damn Shadows Over Canterlot program. Cooking. News…

…news that looked like a suspiciously familiar airfield near Appleloosa.

A tall, white mare was addressing the camera, her sickly green mane nearly reaching to her knees.

“The new Aurora Heavy Industries Air Transit Station will not only serve our company, but the entire Appleoosian Metroplex. We’ll be able to service thousands of travelers and tens of thousands of tons of cargo transport daily, and with our state of the art drone security systems travel through our services will be safer than eight percent of other stations available in the region…”

Trixie watched the screen, listening to mare boast of the airfield’s tight security and the fact that it will provide steady transport for so many ponies. So many ponies… passing right over a hive of creatures like the ones that’d chased the van. That had foalnapped Raindrops’ brother. How many more would get foalnapped in the coming months if that airfield went active? A place that large, it’d be easy for a few disappearances to happen. They were common enough at normal airports. One a week, maybe two. Covered up the way incidents are so easy to cover up.

Unless somepony stopped it. Which those five mares would try to do, some to save loved ones, others just to protect their friends.

…friends…

Trixie was up and out the door before she could second guess herself.

Chapter 7: How it Enters the Final Act

View Online

Chapter 7: How it Enters the Final Act

One good thing about being in the temporary employ of the world’s largest Megacorp was that price was suddenly no object. Lyra might have accepted that she was walking into what could easily be her last run, but at least she wasn’t about to go down from lack of proper gear.

She and the girls had been given the complete run of Luna’s all but limitless resources to requisition equipment for the attack on the airfield. Granted, Lyra and her team hadn’t exactly been poorly equipped before, but every shadowrunner has a ‘wishlist’ of the finest kind of gear that couldn’t be easily gotten a hold of. And now they had a proverbial genie granting those material wishes.

If only there was a gun that could instantly rescue Bon Bon, or Raindrops’ little brother, Lyra thought bitterly as she checked the new Thunderbolt Mk. II anti-material rifle she’d acquired. The thing didn’t even fire conventional ammunition, instead using electromagnetic rail technology and spells to throw 10mm tungsten spikes at speeds surpassing Mach 2. It wasn’t a gun so much as a personal sized artillery piece suited for hunting tanks, not ponies.

Lyra imagined it’d do well enough against these Changelings.

Normally she rated her gear based on how well it’d help her complete a job with a zero body count. She wasn’t so concerned with that, this time around.

And just in case she was taking some nifty toys for downing any corrupted ponies or confuse security guards. She had a pair of Hydra 22F heavy pistols in quick fire straps on her arms, each armed with smart ammo magazines. She could, with a word or flick of magic, switch between half a dozen rounds; including stick-n-shocks, knockout gel rounds, and rubber rounds. Plenty of non-lethal options when she needed it.

The others on her team were similarly equipping themselves in the ready room that was just outside the helipad where the VTOLs were waiting for them. Cheerilee was wearing sleek new bodysuit, pitch black. It was made from a new ballistic spell-mesh that used miniature shield spell arrays combined with the latest in kinetic absorbing gel pads to make a armor that felt like wearing a second coat, but let one dance through small arms fire. Most the rest of the girls were wearing similar suits, though not Raindrops. Raindrops was… well, Lyra wasn’t sure what to think of what Raindrops was wearing.

“I don’t care what it takes, I just need the power to beat that monster,” Raindrops had told Luna, when Raindrops had selected the… suit, from the list of M.A.S.T’s available tech.

Luna had warned Raindrops that it’d required additional cyberwear implants to let Raindrops interface with the suit, and that Raindrops was already dangerously low on ‘essence’, the innate magical energy that permeates a pony and makes the, well… alive. Raindrops insisted. Lyra hadn’t had the heart to argue with her. So Raindrops had gone through the procedure in record time, Luna personally overseeing the implanting of the new nodes across her spine that let her wear her new “armor”.

The frame was called an ACPA (Assisted Combat Powered Armor) and it didn’t exist yet on any market; military, black, or otherwise. They were entirely bleeding edge new tech courtesy of M.A.S.T’s most advanced research department. Luna claimed they were developed specifically to counter threats like the Changelings, though Lyra had her doubts. The Changelings and the Insect Spirits were a deadly threat, yes, but one that you’d need more subtle means to counter on a large scale. This power armor stuff looked like it was meant to take on a more direct threat, like an enemy nation, or giant monsters, or the return of the Tyrant Sun, as if that would ever happen.

What Raindrops was wearing was a prototype, meant exclusively for close range combat. It was a bulky affair of dark blue steel, encasing almost all of Raindrops save for her head, though there was a helmet with a red tinted visor that could lower to seal her into the suit entirely. Her wings were encased, but the suit had a pair of tilted V-shaped wings with levitation and miniature VTOL rotors that’d allow for short distance flight. It was equipped with numerous weapons; machine guns in the forelegs, small concealable grenade launchers in the shoulders, a side mounted flame thrower, and a large set of mono-claws in both front hoofs. Nothing long range, but in close quarters it’d turn Raindrops into a monster.

Fitting, since monsters were what they’d be fighting.

Aside from the normal arrangement of upgraded pistols or in Cheerilee’s case a fresh new pair of compact Chimera sub-machine guns, it was Carrot Top who’d taken the most new gear in a host of new drones, including a replacement for her lost Rabbit Crusher. This drone wasn’t as large as the burly, custom built Rabbit Crusher had been, but it looked deadly enough; a matte black tilt-wing roto-drone the size of a shopping cart, like a little flying black wedge. Carrot Top assured Lyra it had a impressive suit of cannons and rockets, and that it’d add a lot of punch on top of Raindrops’ power armor.

And yet despite all of this Lyra still felt nervous.

“You wanted her to come, didn’t you?” asked Ditzy, making Lyra almost start. Ditzy’s wall-eyes were inches from hers as the gray pegasus stared at Lyra.

“I what?” Lyra asked, blinking.

“Trixie,” said Ditzy, “You’re disappointed she skipped out on us?”

“Why do you think that?” Lyra said, looking away, “She was never meant to be a permanent member of the team. She was just brought on for the one run, that’s it. I got no biz asking her to risk her hide more than that and she had every right to trot away.”

“Maybe, but you’ve been looking unplugged since she let,” said Ditzy, an icon flashing above the mare’s head, Lyra’s AR mirrorshades showing her the little frowny-face muffin icon as it flapped on tiny pegasus wings around Ditzy’s head.

“Ditzy, she’s got a marefriend who’s currently in the clutches of bug monsters from Dimension-X, I think she’s got plenty of reason to be out of sorts besides our magician friend sitting this one out,” said Cheerilee, face wearing a small smile of encouragement, “Though if you did want her back for a little action sometime, Lyra, I could probably convince her. I don’t doubt I can figure out what buttons to press on her.”

Lyra raised and eyebrow, “Don’t think she’s wired for that, Cheerilee. And like I said, it was her call. Anyway, are we all set to go?”

Raindrops grimaced, her face fighting a bit, “More or less green over here.”

Carrot Top came over to her, putting a hoof on the shoulder of the power armor while looking up at Raindrops’ face. The suit gave the pegasus about nine extra inches of height.

“Don’t try to act tough Rains,” Carrot Top said, “If you’re nervous system is having trouble adjusting that’s not abnormal. If you’re in pain-“

“I’m okay,” Raindrops cut the other mare off, not harshly, but firmly, “It doesn’t hurt. Opposite, actually. It’s a tad numb in a few spots and feels… weird. I just… I don’t feel like a pony, right now, is all.”

“Well, you do look like a walking tank,” said Cheerilee, “Bound to have some disconnect with feeling like a normal pony when you’re strapped into a ton of metal and firepower.”

At Raindrops’ glare Cheerilee grinned and raised a hoof, “Kidding. I’m kidding. But seriously, CTs right. If you’re feeling out of sorts, tell us. We’re you friends, and we’ll do whatever we can to help.”

Raindrops glanced away, “Right now the only thing that will help is getting my brother back.”

Ditzy nodded emphatically, a small swarm of mini-muffins mass hugging Raindrops in AR space, “We’ll get everypony’s important ponies back safe and sound, and make all the bad guys see what happens when you make a team of shadowrunner mares mad.”

At that Raindrops did smile slightly, then the helmet of the power armor flipped down, the red visor seeming to come alive with internal light. Raindrops’ voice came out in a synthesized drawl, “Damn straight.”

With that they all exited the room and went down a short corridor to a set of metal sliding doors that hissed open at their approach, leading out into the bright, star filled night. They were on the roof of the M.A.S.T tower they’d met Luna in, and there was a single sleek VTOL waiting for them there. CEO Luna herself was standing outside it, her eyes gazing off across the glittering skyscrapers of the Canterlot Metroplex, her ethereal mane blending in with the dark night skyline.

She wore no armor nor bore any weapons, but Lyra suspected the ancient alicorn required neither. It still surprised her somewhat that Luna was accompanying them, but then again, this fight against the Changelings and Inspect Spirits was part of Luna’s personal crusade to protect Equestria, so why wouldn’t she come? Besides, given the magical nature of the Insect Spirits they’d need the kind of mystical backup the alicorn could offer, and Luna had suggested that she herself might be required to help save Snails from the clutches of the Insect Spirit’s influence.

“Princess Luna,” Lyra said as she approached, and paused, blinking. Why had she just called her ‘Princess’? Luna hadn’t carried that title since before Lyra was born.

Luna looked at her, smiling kindly, “I trust the five of you are satisfied with your preparations?”

“Loaded as my sister on Friday night,” Cheerilee said, causing Lyra to give her a sidelong look. Cheerilee shrugged, “What? My sis is a lush. A fantastic lush I love to pieces, but truth’s truth.”

Carrot Top snickered, shaking her head, “Remind me when this is all done we ought to hit up her bar.”

Cheerilee pumped a foreleg in the air, “We’ll paint the Ponyville Barrens red! You know that phrase’s origins are pretty neat; back in 837 Marquis Mulberry went on a all night binger in his hometown, leading a whole mob of revelers in all manner of vandalism, culminating in painting the town’s bridge and a number of stores with red paint.”

Luna suddenly sighed, “I remember that. Quite the mess that needed cleaning up that morning.”

Lyra shook her head with a small laugh, “It’s so easy to forget how old you actually are.”

“Old am I? Hmph, I’ll have you know I’m only around six or so eons young, give or take a few millennia,” the alicorn said with a smile and a wink, “In any case we need to wait a few more minutes before departing.”

“Why?” snapped Raindrops, her power armor seeming to twitch slightly, “I don’t want to let Snails wait a single second longer to be free of those monsters!”

“I understand,” said Luna with a knowing look in her eyes, “But I’ve just received word from the front desk. It seems we’ll have one more joining us on this most dangerous yet important of ventures.”

The mares exchanged confused looks but only a few scant minutes after those cryptic words one of the small elevators lining one end of the roof opened up and a familiar blue unicorn came trotting out. Her gait was the kind of casual stroll of somepony arriving late to the party but trying to make it look fashionable. Trixie Lulamoon was wearing a light violet cape and pointed hat, both ridiculously star speckled. Strapped to her leg was her short barreled Street-Cold Special, but otherwise Trixie wasn’t carrying any additional equipment. When she reached the group Trixie put on a casual smile.

“I hope I’m not too late to be added to the list of guests for this particular party?”

“Dressed like that?” asked Cheerilee with a wry half-grin, “We’re going into the fight of our lives, not a Las Pegasus magic show.”

Trixie flipped her cape with a flourish and ran a hoof over the brim of her pointed hat, “I’ll have you know these are more than mere garments of elegance and theme; they’re lucky.”

“Lucky?” asked Carrot Top.

Trixie nodded firmly, “Lucky.”

“You do remember you got shot last time, right?” asked Raindrops, and Trixie blanched at Raindrops’ new armor that made her look like an imposing walking robot.

“Is that you in there, Raindrops?” asked Trixie.

“Yeah, what of it?”

“Nothing,” Trixie said, hiding what Lyra imagined was her unease at Randrops’ appearance, “And to your question, yes I remember being shot. Hence why I’m wearing these garments. Armored clothing is nice and all, but I prefer mobility. Magic will be my armor. Besides, if I stick behind you I think you’ll make an excellent piece of walking cover now.”

Raindrops made a sound that might have been a laugh, “Whatever. Don’t complain if I end up stepping on you.”

Ditzy flew over and gave Trixie a sudden hug, causing Trixie to blanch at the sudden contact, almost pulling away, though Ditzy’s hooves were powerful things when delivering hugs so the magician was thoroughly trapped in the embrace of affection.

“You came! You really do care about us!”

“I, uh… well… “ Trixie stammered, face red, eyes flicking about almost in panic, “It just feels like the job you hired me for isn’t actually done. Not until all loose ends are tied up. It’s only professional. And… and yes, I didn’t like the idea of never finding out how this all turned out. It’d keep me up at night! I require my beauty sleep, and can’t have nightmares of bug monsters and your unknown fates plaguing me. That’s all.”

Ditzy eventually let Trixie go and gave the poor mare a moment to breath. Lyra walked up then, and Trixie looked up from panting to catch her breath and met Lyra’s eyes. Lyra lowered her mirrorshades, and smiled, offering a hoof.

“Welcome to the team, Trixie.”

Trixie returned the smile with a rueful one of her own, griping Lyra’s hoof, “Well, can’t leave the team without a mage, can I?”

Luna made a soft chuckle, causing Trixie to blink and then quickly wave a hoof, “Not that I’m saying you’re not a capable mage! I’m sure you are. You’re an alicorn and all and probably know all sorts of spells I can only have egotrips about- not that I have egotrips all that often. Just occasionally.”

“It’s alright my little pony,” said Luna, striding towards the back of the VTOL, the doors on the rear end o it opening up at the alicorn’s approach, “You are part of that team, now. I’m merely a benefactor, here to provide support. The six of you, I think, will be the keys that carry the night… “

Lyra gave Luna a sidelong glance as they all loading onto the VTOL, strapping themselves into the available seats of the roomy passenger area. She couldn’t really read the alicorn’s face, Luna’s expression inscrutable beyond simple confidence. It wasn’t as if Lyra thought there was anything wrong… but she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a great deal going on behind Luna’s eyes than she was letting on. It reminded her of an old shadowrunner proverb that she’d never really understood:

Watch your back, shoot straight, conserve ammo, and never, ever cut a deal with an alicorn.

Considering the world only had two alicorns (three if you still counted the one locked up in the sun) it just seemed an odd saying to Lyra. Yet that enigmatic look on Luna’s face made Lyra wonder.

----------

Joints popped as Trixie stretched and forced herself not to yawn. In her eagerness to get back on the team she’d forgotten just how little rest she’d gotten, as in none, and she hadn’t even been able to grab a quick soykaff or stim tablet. Fortunately Carrot Top came to the rescue, leaning over and nudging Trixie.

“Guessing you didn’t grab a power nap like the rest of us?”

“Mmmrrrphg…” Trixie replied, rubbing at her face with a hoof, “Been a busy day, filled with corporate espionage and mortal danger. Been a shade too wired to think sleep, but feels like its catching up with me.”

“Well, won’t fix your tiredness, just make you feel like its fixed,” said Carrot Top as she offered a slap patch, a small plastic square that you, as the name suggested, slapped on your hide and the lovely drugs inside would be absorbed through the skin. Trixie didn’t even question Carrot Top on what was in the patch as she put it on her neck. Almost immediately she felt a wave of cold alertness pass through her bloodstream, as if she’d just downed ten straight cups of the blackest soykaff she’d ever had.

“Oh, yes, this will do,” said Trxie, stretching once more, this time with a pleased grunt as her limbs came alive.

“Should keep you juiced for a few hours. Crash will be hard, but with luck we’ll be done with this business by then,” said Carrot Top.

“Thanks,” Trixie said, managing a small smile, which Carrot Top returned, then Trixie glanced towards the front of the VTOL’s dimly lit passenger compartment. She couldn’t see the cockpit, and could only barely make out the others strapped in to their respective seats. “How much longer before we get there?”

“We’re running silent, and not at top speed, so the stealth spells and electronic based countermeasures can do their best work,” said Luna, “But not long. Less than an hour, now.”

“Shouldn’t we, well, plan out just what we’re doing?” asked Cheerilee, “Not that I don’t love the idea of rushing in blind, but maybe now would be a good time to work out a few details?”

“Unfortunately,” said Luna, “Details will be difficult to plan due to the fact that we lack knowledge of just what we will be facing, at least in terms of numbers, locations, and layout. We know the surface area of the mesas and airfield, and know where to hit for insertion to the closest area we’ve seen the Changelings’ slaves being taken, but my own ponies have been unable to garner more detailed information.”

“Just leave that to me!” said Ditzy with a confident tone, wall-eyes winking, “Get me to an direct access port inside the place and I’ll find everything we need.”

“That’s great, Ditz,” said Raindrops, “But we’ll still need to land and crack our way inside before you can do that. Until then we’ll be, like Cheerilee says, running in blind.”

“So our plan is just to land, rush in, and make things up from there?” asked Trixie.

“Essentially,” said Luna with a small, apologetic shrug, “I doubt what we shall be seeking will be found inside the airfield’s actual facilities. The Changeling hive will be hidden beneath that façade. Unlikely that any details could be garnered even by breaking into the facility’s Matrix nodes. No, Miss Lulamoon, I’m afraid this will be a matter of quick thinking and instinct.”

Trixie winced a bit, never much liking the use of her last name, but she didn’t mention anything, her mind thinking ahead to the task before her. From what she’d seen on the news that messa was huge. If there was some kind of hive inside it then this wasn’t going to be an easy search. They’d need some kind of hint of where to go.

“It’s not hard,” said Raindrops, flexing one arm of her large power armored frame, “We find one of these Changelings, and make it talk. With fire.”

Lyra sighed, “Probably our best bet. Assuming they’re the kind of creatures that can be persuaded that way.”

“We’ll find out,” Raindrops said coldly, and the cabin went silent, nopony really wanting to speak more of what they might have to do. Ultimately they all knew this wasn’t going to be a clean run. Their opponents weren’t ponies, but for some that didn’t soften the notion of what they’d need to do. Trixie knew she wasn’t relishing the idea. She’d never taken a life and didn’t intend to start. Staying alive was, however, a top priority, as well as keeping her newfound friends intact. If it came down to it… well, she’d cross that bridge when the time came.

Time passed with agonizing slowness, but pass it did, and before long a lisping female voice spoke over the VTOL’s intercom, “Madame President, we’re approaching the target. Two kilometers out, we’ll be in range to touchdown in five minutes. So far no pings on our scans. I think we’re still invisible to whatever eyes our out there looking.”

“Very good, Fleetfoot,” said Luna, “Continue the course. Stay low, and keep pace with Regal 2. I’d prefer our hosts don’t realize they have guests until we’re on their doorstep.”

Trixie felt the deck shudder slightly and it seemed to her as if the VTOL’s speed increased, but without a window or any kind of exterior view she had no idea what was going on outside. That in and of itself was nerve wracking, causing a bit of sweat to bead on the side of her head. What if the airfield had defenses? What if they were spotted before they could land? Trixie’s hyperactive imagination plagued her with images of the VTOL exploding in a ball of flames from any number of attacks or mishaps that might occur in the next few minutes, with her helpless to do anything about it.

She suddenly felt a hoof on her arm, glancing to her left to see Ditzy smiling at her as the gray pegasus leaned towards her and whispered, “Don’t tell anypony, but I hacked the VTOL’s systems and can see outside. Don’t worry, we’re fine. We’re just coming up on the messa and its all dark out there. I don’t think anypony over there has a clue we’re coming.”

Trixie didn’t know whether to be grateful for the reassurance or worried that Ditzy was screwing with the VTOL’s systems. She just ended up giving Ditzy a uneasy smile and nod and continued to wait while sweating bullets.

Suddenly Trixie’s stomach lurched as the VTOL went into an abrupt and sharp climb. From the soft groan and the green tint to her otherwise yellow fur it seemed Carrot Top wasn’t at all happy with the maneuver either. Ditzy giggled slightly, “Up we go. Wow, she’s hugging the messa wall real close. Hope we don’t crash.”

Trixie shot Ditzy a withering look but Ditzy just kept smiling, making it hard to stay functionally mad at her. Trixie grunted again as the VTOL apparently reached the top of the messa and leveled out of its climb, now skimming the airfield. Trixie wished more than ever to have some kind of exterior view. Luna unstrapped herself from her seat and stood.

“Prepare yourselves,” the alicorn said with a grim tone.

With that the mares all did their last second checks of their gear and got up from their seats. Luna took the front of the line at the rear opening hatch of the VTOL, with Raindrops and Lyra right behind her. Cheerilee and Ditzy were next in line, with Trixie and Carrot Top bringing up the rear. Carrot Top had unhooked her new, hefty drone from a top hatch and let the rotor driven craft hover next to her like an oversized, protective guard wasp.

Seconds ticked by as they all tensed, waiting.

Then there was a shudder that ran through the hull of the ship that Trixie was pretty sure wasn’t normal, given the accompanying metallic pelting noises that rapidly echoed across the bulkheads. The floor jerked violently and Trixie struggled to keep on her hooves as the pilot’s voice spoke up again over the com.

“Think they know we’re here! The whole complex just lit up and we’re taking fire! Hold on, opening the catch, you’ll have to jump as we glide past the LZ!”

Without any further warning air blasted into the compartment as the hatch in the back hissed open, showing a dark night sky, a shadowy ground that was being lit up by flashes of gunfire and tracers, and a set of large black hangars silhouetted against the star filled horizon. They were probably skimming no more than ten paces off the tarmac of what looked to Trixie like an air strip, moving at high speed. Sweat cooled on her brow from the wind as she thought about just how insane jumping out was, but the VTOL was slowing down, and it wasn’t as if she had much choice. Raindrops went out first, the mare in heavy power armor slamming into the tarmac and taking off at a run.

One by one the others followed, Luna spreading her wings and streaking into the night, and the others jumping behind Raindrops. Only Ditzy remained with Trixie and the decker gave Trixie a wink as she grabbed a hold of Trixie’s barrel with her forelegs and without waiting for Trixie’s respond took flight.

“Ggggaaaaah!” Trixie protested.

“Hey! Stop kicking! I won’t drop you!” Ditzy said.

“Sorry, just had to get that out of my system,” replied Trixie once she caught her breath.

Ditzy landed in short order, Trixie scrambling with her legs until she got solid purchase on the smooth concrete of the runway. Once she got her bears, Ditzy standing next to her, Trixie could see the VTOL only as a faint darker outline in the sky, along with the other VTOL that was landed nearer to the large hangars. The gunfire seemed to be coming from small, squat shapes that hovered along the ground coming from a series of larger buildings that looked like the control tower and terminals for the airfield. Drones? They didn’t move like living things, like the Changelings that’d chased them through the Mextroplex, so Trixie was assuming they were security drones.

Luckily the drones seemed focused on the VTOL that’d just dropped them off, flashes of orange tracer fire stitching across the sky at the sleek craft as it sailed away in a series of looping evasive maneuvers.

“Trix! Ditz! Move your flanks!” called Lyra’s voice and that galvanized Trixie into action.

Soon enough Trixie made out where the others were, all making their way for the hangars where the team of M.A.S.T security forces had also landed, the VTOL that had brought them in also lifting off and flying off. Trixie wondered if they’d just wait somewhere nearby until it was time to come back and extract the team? Or did Luna have some other plan for getting out of here once they took care of the Changelings and Insect Spirits?

At the front of one of the large, looming and intimidating shape of a hangar Trixie found the other members of her team standing with Luna and the group of half a dozen M.A.S.T guards in their midnight blue armor. One of them was speaking, Trixie recognizing Shining Armor’s voice.

“We’ll begin the distraction operation and take out the hangars, Madame President. I think we can draw enough attention so you and the others can slip into the main terminal unseen.”

“So be it,” said Luna, “Be careful. If you think you can’t hold out, call for an extraction, regardless of whether you’ve heard back from my team or not.”

Shining Armor’s posture went stiff but he nodded smartly, “Yes, Madame President. Just don’t make me have to make that call. I wouldn’t look forward to trying to explain to my father how I lost our CEO.”

Luna’s short laugh was soft as starlight, “I’ll try to spare you that conversation. Now, my little ponies, let us go, to battle.”

Trixie had half expected the alicorn to fall into some kind of olden dialect of ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ at that point, rearing up to kick her legs and neigh a battlecry before charging away, but instead Luna’s horn lit up briefly and Trixie felt a spell falling across her and the other mares of Lyra’s shadowrunner team.

It was unicorn magic, and feeling the tingle on her fur Trixie knew it was a spell layering across her and the other’s bodies. Glancing around she could see the other’s forms shifting and blurring until they seemed like little more than mirror pools of motion that blended into the background.

“I’m placing spells that should help us get to the main building undetected. However I’m afraid more mundane devices of technology could prove problematic, as I cannot hide our thermal signature or bio-electric fields. Miss Ditzy, I was hoping you could perhaps disable those systems?”

The blurred form that was Ditzy Doo shifted slightly as Trixie thought the pegasus might have just saluted with one wing, “I’m all over it! One slice and dice into their system ICE coming right up! I can hack on the fly, so let’s go!”

There was certainly no argument from anypony else, so Shining Armor and his team went for the hangars to prepare their distraction, which Trixie could only imagine would involve plenty of explostions if the packets of plastic explosives she saw a few of the guard carrying was any indication. At the same time she and the other shadowrunners began a fast trot, keeping their faint shimmers in sight and being careful not to trip over each other.

Soon enough the form of the main terminal loomed ahead and despite the gunfire still constant from the drones towards the VTOL the area seemed dark and dead. Trixie had to wonder just what they’d find once they were inside.

----------

Ditzy’s mind was now split between two realities. In the physical world she moved her body along with her fellows, coming up on the long, L-shaped main terminal building of the airfield they wanted to break into. There was a lot of space to cover, giving her about five, maybe ten minutes to work her magic and slice into the systems she’d need to shut down any devices that might detect them despite Luna’s fancy cloaking spell.

Ditzy thought it was kind of funny that the all-powerful alicorn needed the skills of a decker just like everypony else did in this day and age. She supposed Luna wouldn’t be the type to put a datajack in or install an internal comlink like Ditzy had so interface with the Matrix. Well, Ditzy didn’t judge. Cyberspace wasn’t for everypony.

One of the best benefits of having her comlink installed internally was that she didn’t need to rely entirely on jacking into a terminal or using a full cyberdeck to hack on the fly. Sure she could whip out her deck to do a full VR dive, even with a wireless port, but she could also use Augmented Reality superseding some of her physical senses to do her job. So it was that while she was moving her body like normal her mind was partially delved into the world of the Matrix, seeing images and objects flowing across her vision that weren’t real to anypony else but her and the system she was interfaced with.

While others would be horribly disoriented by this dual vision, to Ditzy it came as natural as breathing… or having strabismus. Ditzy was used to looking in two different directions at once, seeing two worlds at once. While her body ran along with her friends her mind flew across a sparkling landscape of circuitry, her Matrix avatar of a fresh baked muffin with gray wings and a friendly pair of eyes and a smile much like her own cruising towards the system entry port for the airfield terminal.

The port, the SAN (System Access Node), looked like a massive set of black trees, standing like a thick fence against intrusion, branches covered in large thorns blocking entry to the rest of the system. Ditzy quickly scanned around, activating subtle sensory programs to detect any security programs that might be defending the SAN.

Soon enough she saw a pair of giant chrome wasps buzzing near the treetops, sentry ICE that would guard the SAN from any intrusion. Unless of course they never saw that intrusion. Ditzy’s muffin avatar pulled out a sparkling wand capped with a mini-muffin and wove a pattern of glitter that made her form shimmer, much like Luna’s invisibility spell. This masking program would hide her from detecting, hopefully, while she looked to access the SAN.

Masking algorithms bean a deadly dance with the sentry ICE’s detection code as the invisible muffin avatar approached the black tree fence under the sharp watch of the chrome wasps. The wasps buzzed and fluttered their wings, but did not take flight, Ditzy’s avatar remaining undetected as she reached the SAN’s huge, thorn woven gates. Once there her muffin reached behind its back with comically thin cartoonish appendages and pulled out a tray with fresh backed muffins, steam rising from their golden brown tops. Ditzy, in real life, licked her lips. She really needed to remember to bake some muffins when she got home.

The muffins in the Matrix were a spoofing program meant to crack the security codes on the gate ICE the trees represented. While hiding as mundane code the spoof would throw thousands upon thousands of possible passcodes hidden as junk code in the hope of slipping the right combination into the gate ICE. Tense seconds passed as the muffin avatar held its tray of delicious baked goods out to the black trees… then slowly a branch uncoiled from the trees, its thorn covered form snaking to the tray, the tip of the branch seeming to sniff at the muffins as if a snake tasting the air.

Then the branch snatched up the muffins from the tray, pulling them back into the dark depths of the trees. Slowly the branches shifted as the gate ICE accepted Ditzy’s spoof codes and opened up the SAN for her avatar. With a tiny, happy ‘yay’ Ditzy sent her avatar through to enter the terminal’s system proper.

In real life only a minute had passed and they were just over halfway in hoofing it to the terminal. Plenty of time left. Now that she was through the SAN she took a gander around the interior of the airfield’s systems. It was like being in the depths of a dark, twisted forest. A labyrinth of trees stretched around her, but Ditzy didn’t let it overwhelm her. This was a common defense as well, a spam of fake node information to overload an intruder’s ability to find anything.

Ditzy didn’t have time to play games with this system, so she decided to cut straight to the chase now that she was inside. Her muffin icon rapidly began to spin, spitting out a small furry of spawned mini-muffins with wings of their own that went flitting about the trees like bizarre baked good breezies. This was among her most potent search programs, written when she was but a filly but updated over and over until she could use it to track down any kind of information she wanted inside a system. It was a relentless program that disguised itself by piggybacking on other programs that naturally flitted about the system, self-replicating itself in each node it broke into until it spread through the whole system, all the while streaming data back to Ditzy.

It couldn’t actually manipulate any nodes, however, so once Ditzy’s search program sent her the location of the utility node responsible for controlling the airfield terminal’s cameras and similar security systems she jetted of down the information highways to reach it. She zipped between branches, flew between brambles, rounded half a dozen other nodes whose ICE she avoided with more masking programs, leaving behind their icons of vast insect-like predators behind her.

Soon she was hovering before a dark forest cave in the side of a steep rock cliff, its entrance ominously dark and open. Ditzy frowned, wondering what ICE might lay within. She saw no barriers, no sentries… and that worried her. Ditzy was fond of surprises, but only good ones, like when Dinky threw her a surprise birthday party. She didn’t like nasty surprises like the one she was sure was waiting the unwary who approached this node without caution.

She still felt the sting both in her head and in her pride at the beating she took from that Flim jerk. Or was it Flam? Well, both brothers were jerks, so it didn’t matter! Ditzy wasn’t going to be caught off guard again!

The muffin icon’s cartoony derped eyes narrowed dangerously and its small spindly appendages reached into its fresh baked form to withdraw a shining metal cooking pot lid and a razor sharp spatula. The pot lid was an armor program that reinforced her icon’s base code against aggressive intrusion. The spatula was a ready attack program of her own designed to cut apart the data of any ICE it touched.

She still cloaked herself with a masking program, hoping to avoid whatever danger lay ahead, but she had to access this node, and do it soon, because in the real world she could see that they had nearly reached the terminal building. Time in the real world seemed to slow to Ditzy’s senses as she focused more of her attention on the Matrix and her icon approaching the utility node.

In the digital world Ditzy felt the ground shake and heard an roar that would have split eardrums had she had any to split in the Matrix. Her masking program must have failed, for out of the dark cave stomped a massive, monstrous form. Covered in black scales, with long purple claws dripping what looked like globs of acid, with green eyes that were literally blazing with fire was a gigantic dragon. If Ditzy had any doubt this was Black ICE, for what else could this be but the type of lethal Intruder Counter Measure programs designed to not destroy a decker’s icon but give them lethal biofeedback to try and kill the intruder outright? The Black ICE had clearly detected her, because it took one glance at Ditzy, snarled, and unleashed a wave of acidic poison from its gapping maw.

----------

When Ditzy staggered, letting out a strangled cry, Lyra’s heart froze for a second and she halted, looking for the sight of her friend despite the fact that Luna’s spell was keeping them hidden.

“Ditzy’s! What’s wrong!?” Lyra tried to keep her voice down, but not without effort.

“I’m, I’m wiz, just wiz. Run into a problem, but I can take it,” came Ditzy’s strained voice in reply. Lyra felt her teeth grind, and forcibly took control of herself, breathing slowly.

“How big a problem?” she asked. She could tell the rest of the group had stopped. The dark form of the looming airfield terminal was less than a hundred meters ahead. They risked detection if they got much closer without knowing any technological devices had been shut down. For that they needed Ditzy, but Lyra didn’t want the decker to risk her life more than needed. Lyra would rather take on the building’s security rather than lose Ditzy to some ICE.

Lyra had tried her best to mentally prepare herself for losing any of her team. You didn’t become a shadowrunner without being willing to accept the risks involved. However out of all of her team the one she feared losing the most was Ditzy, because if that happened there was a little filly Lyra would have to talk to about why her mother was gone. Ditzy had made Lyra promise when she’d taken Ditzy onto the team that if anything happened to her that Lyra would take care of Dinky, and Lyra would fulfill that promise. She just didn’t want Ditzy to make her have to fulfill that promise.

“Big,” was all Ditzy said, and Lyra could almost make out her indistinct blurred form flinching, “Just… just need a minute. This is a tough one. Can’t be distracted.”

“Do we have a minute?” asked Carrot Top, concern straining her voice.

In the distance the night light up with an orange flash and one of the hangars they’d left behind burst outward in an expanding ball of fire. Almost as one the security drones that had begun to spread out in a searching pattern all turned towards the explosion and started making their way towards it. Gunfire erupted from another hangar, lancing into the approaching drones machines in showers of sparks. The drones returned fire, turning the night into a flashing display of criss-crossing tracers.

“Shining Armor’s distraction buys us more than a few minutes,” said Luna, though there was a clipped worry to the alicorn’s own voice, “Do what you must, Ditzy Doo.”

Lyra didn’t like the alicorn calling that shot, but said, “No risks Ditzy. Crack the ICE if you can, but jack out if it gets too dicey. We can take the building head of if need be.”

“I can do it…” was all Ditzy said, and Lyra hated hearing the pain in the pegasus’ voice.

----------

Ditzy’s icon leapt aside, a small part of its form caught in the corrosive acid that was a highly dangerous and virulent attack program that melted away her defensive code at a meter touch. Her pot lid armor program absorbed some of the Black ICE’s attack but lethal biofeedback still crawled its way across neurolinks, sending a jolt into Ditzy. She shook her head and focused. If she was dong a full dive, running hot in the Matrix with all her mind, she knew she could have dodged that attack, but dividing her attention was working against her even if she was exceptional at the task.

Fearlessly she drove in at the dragon, her spatula flashing. A talon that was poised to strike her was cut, violet blood spilling as code was sheared away from the Black ICE.

The dragon’s roar shook the nearby trees, and Ditzy quickly sent a program out, a small swarm of mini-muffins that suddenly formed a circle and expanded, like fresh baking bread, to form a canopy of toasty goodness around the battle. That roar had been an alarm signal trying to alert the rest of the system and call in more ICE, but Ditzy’s own program blocked the singal.

“Just you and me, scaly,” said Ditzy with a grim smile, flourishing her spatula, “I’ve got a muffin to come home to and you’re not stopping me!”

She flew at the dragon again, which let out another jet of acid and poison. Ditzy just barely scrapped by without taking another dose of lethal biofeedback and tagged the dragon across the chest with another deep cut, torn code leaking from the dragon in the shape of more oozing blood.

That seemed to only make the Black ICE more furious and Ditzy was soon put on the defensive, having to duck, dive, and roll as talons and tail both came into play, lashing at her with a rapid series of programs designed to cut away her own armor code. She had to deflect with her pot lid, and each time it got more and more dented. With a final shattering blow a talon struck the lid dead center and it shattered into a series of quickly dwindling code fragments.

Ditzy was vulnerable, and she saw the dragon take a deep breath, ready for a last breath that would certainly finish her if it hit. She had no space to dodge, bracketed by the Black ICE’s talons. There was only one way to go.

Straight at the dragon’s maw.

Ditzy narrowed her eyes, her muffin icon’s wings spreading wide, and she gripped her spatula with both cartoonish limbs.

Both her eyes now focused on one point, no longer spread. She flew forward at breakneck speed, spatula thrust out before her, aimed right for the dragon’s throat.

The Black ICE’s fanged mouth opened wide.

----------

Lyra nearly jumped as Ditzy screamed and she actually saw the puff of dirt as the pegasus hit the ground.

“Ditzy!” she shouted, rushing to the shimmering shape on the ground. She reached down, feeling about until she got her hooves on her friend’s warm form. She felt the others kneeling around her.

“Is she okay?” asked Trixie.

“Luna, can you drop the invisibility for a second?” asked Carrot Top.

“I can,” said the alicorn, and their forms wavered into the visible spectrum briefly. The alicorn’s horn was still alight and her eyes thick with concentration, “I can hold a directional barrier for a time. We shouldn’t be spotted unless we move too much.”

Ditzy was laying on her stomach, and Lyra was holding her, pulling the pegasus’ head up. Ditzy’s eyes were closed and a bit of blood trickled from her nose.

“Carrot Top?” Lyra asked as the earth pony sat down next to them.

But before Carrot Top could pull out a medkit Ditzy’s eyes fluttered open and the mare got a small, goofy smile on her face, “I’m a dragon slayer.”

Lyra and the others all exchanged looks, and then Lyra said, “Ditzy? Are you alright there, girl?”

“Oh, yeah, great. Kind of got a headache, but what else is new? Oh, got into the right node. Shut down most the building’s security. Stuff that’s not magical, anyway,” Ditzy slowly got to her feet, wavering and teetering until Raindrops put out a armored hoof to stabilize her.

“Wheeee, world is tilty,” Ditzy said, until Luna knelt down, tapped a horn to Ditzy’s head, and a wash of dark blue energy washed over the pegasus. At that point her eyes went wide and her mouth made a small ‘O’ of shock. After the light faded Ditzy blinked, “Wow. I feel great!”

Luna wiped some sweat off her forehead, “It has been some time since I’ve had to use so much magic so quickly. I feel almost out of practice.”

“Thank you,” said Lyra to the alicorn, and then patted Ditzy on the shoulder, “And good work. Hang back and let us take the lead from here. You’ve done your part.”

“Yeah, none of us are going to get to slay any dragons, so let some of us put in some work tonight, eh?” asked Cheerilee.

Ditzy giggled, shaking her head, “I guess I can take it easy for a bit. Still need maps of what’s inside there, though. Maybe I’ll find a nice safe terminal to jack into.”

“Regardless, we must capitalize on her success and enter the belly of this beast,” said Luna, recasting her invisibility spell upon the team, “Our night has only just begun.”

Author's Notes:

I felt kind of bad about Ditzy in earlier chapters, kind of skimming over any details about her actions in the Matrix during the A.H.I run, so I decided this chapter I'd actually delve into what Ditzy Doo actually does as a decker. One major difference between 4th edition Shadowrun versus its predecessors was that it let deckers/hackers do their thing while still being mobile in the real world, which was a good move as it allowed the normally rooted decker to actually stick with the party. They could still jack in for a full VR dive if they wanted, but it really helped game flow to not have to worry about leaving the decker in a broom closet while the rest of the party went on the run. Anyway, hope you guys had fun reading. As always don't hesitate to let me know what you thought.

Lunaverse X Shadowrun: First Run

by thatguyvex

Chapter 1: How it Starts

Chapter 2: How it Escalates

Chapter 3: How it Goes Wrong

Chapter 4: How it Gets Tough

Chapter 5: How it Came to Be

Chapter 6: How it Gets Personal

Chapter 7: How it Enters the Final Act