It's 2072 and Ruby Rose looked down from the apartment her dad had spent the last three months Mage-proofing, near disconnecting it from the matrix, and connecting fake System Identification Numbers to the residents of. You didn't work in the shadows without a healthy sense of paranoia. It's just the fact that her dad had cranked his own homegrown paranoia up to eleven after her mom died.
The lucky thing was that he'd never really trusted the government, or the corporations, or anyone really, something about never trusting a dragon. Dad never really talked about his runs to her or Yang, when asked he's just say 'it's not something to be glamorized' or 'It's not something to be proud of'. She'd long since learnt that if she wanted to hear about her dad's old runs she'd have to talk to uncle Qrow, the man would make sure to tell her all the details, about how they'd been on a run during the Matrix Crash 2.0 back in '62, or how they'd gone into the Renraku Arcology to save some of the people held there by a homicidal AI. dad hated Qrow telling them about STRQ's old runs, they often heard the arguments from whatever apartment they were renting at the time, before they moved again to 'keep them off our tail', whoever they were.
When she'd awakened at 12, dad and uncle Qrow had gotten into another argument about whether to train her. Uncle Qrow, a Physical Adept himself, had actually broken the kitchen counter with how hard he'd been gripping it, Dad almost broke a Cyberleg with how hard he stomped, but within the year, he'd agreed, if only because having a magically empowered child stomping around the house was going to hurt if she didn't know how to avoid using 'Killing Hands' on someone.
'Make sure she can handle her new abilities' training turned into combat training, on no innocent part to Ruby, she became a menace with a Monofilament sword, cutting through most of the practice materials like a hot knife through butter. Yang had participated too, but she'd found more common ground with their father's style, going so far as to get Cyberarms to augment the style. Ruby had let loose grimace when she saw them, Sacrificing Essence, the very core of one's soul for a cheap power boost was unnerving to any awakened.
Ruby picked up her keys from the pot by the door, and began her walk, she'd just set herself up over her uncle's old contacts, and was waiting a hit back, but staying inside staring at a screen isn't helping anyone, so she'd elected to take a walk through Seattle.
Hearing a crash from a window down the street, an Ork and a Troll came crashing through a window, the troll breaking one of his horns on the impact, his suit torn from a struggle inside. The ork however looked fine, not even that worse for wear, two chromed Cyberarms gleaming uner the streetlight.
"Yang, is that you?"
She cocked her head, of course she was getting into fights again.
"Oh, Hey sis,"
"What are you doing here?"
Yang just sighed, "it's a long story.
Ruby Rose AKA: Riding Hood. Physical Adept
White: The Mage
The Schnee family were some of the richest people on earth, due in no small part to, for three generations, holding a position on the board members of Ares Macrotechnology, the 7th biggest corporation in the world. Nicholas Schnee had been CEO and Chairman of the Board from 2003 to 2023. It was 'Ol' Nick' who had begun picking up the pieces when the USA began selling government assets, Purchasing NASA. when Nicholas left the position he left the position of CEO and Chairman to the board to decide, even if he still owned a vast amount of the shares in the company, to whom they elected Leonard Aurelius. Under Aurelius, Aries sold firearms to both sides of the Euro Wars. Nicholas Schnee died of a heart attack in his home at age 33, this prompted his son in-law, Jaque to consolidate the 15% he owned of his father's company during the Nanosecond Buyout into 22%, causing him to own over a fifth of the company, and bringin the Schnee's back onto the board. In 2066, Aurelius resigned at the age of 72, causing the board to elect his replacement, one James Ironwood with the help of Nadja Daviar, owner of 14% of Aries, as bequeathed in the will of President Dunkelzahn of the UCAS.
Under Ironwood, Aries had cracked down on its Arms and armaments deals, increasing its focus on military equipment and services using their Knight Errant 'security forces'. Weiss had had this history ingrained into her by the time she turned ten.
Weiss Schnee was the definition of privileged. The second daughter of a millionaire family, an Elven family at that, and to cap it all off, Awakened. The second youngest had always had a knack for casting, she was the epitome of the 0.01%. So why did she feel so empty?
Because that was all there was.
Learn about the company so she could take her father's place, Learn to control her powers to help with the business, it was an endless cycle. In the end, it was Klein who offered a way out.
The dwarf had offered a body double, quite simple magic, but quite foolproof, at least, when you didn't need it to do anything but lie down and breathe, coupled with some simple invisibility and she'd be able to come and go as she pleased, at night at least. She'd been using this method for months to get out of the house undetected before she tried doing anything illegal, afterall, she had a foolproof Alibi. From there it increased, usually only 'Milk Runs', a term used for simple and easy jobs. It was exhilarating.
She couldn't get enough.
She could put her talents to use in the shadows, not for something so fickle as money or fame, she had more than enough of those, but the thrill? The opportunity to spite her father? That was priceless.
Weiss Schnee AKA: Snow White. Mage
Black: The Shadow Infiltrator
Ten years ago, in 2061 through to 2062, Halley's comet passed by earth. In the years leading up to the event it was held as merely an astrological event, and in the Sixth World, it was an uninteresting one at that. The last half-century had brought such turmoil to the world, the UGE creating Elves and Dwarves in 2002, Magic's return and all that came with it, Goblinization creating painful metamorphosis into troll and orks, President Dunkelzahn's, the great dragon who had guided humanity out of this turmoil, assassination. And that was only on a global scale, to North America, Successions and coups had dominated the early twenty-first century, and although she wasn't around to see it, Blake could see the effects everywhere. But whenever she looked down she was reminded of the comet.
Blake was ten years old during The Year Of The Comet as it had come to be known. Up until then, her life had been somewhat normal, as normal as you could while living in a Sprawl, get up, get dressed, go to the cheap imitation of a school, come home to her parents, go to sleep. That month news reports had been coming out about the 'Sudden Unexplained Recessive Genetic Expression', something about rising mana levels. They hadn't really cared until she'd doubled over in pain. A ten-year-old, screaming like her guts were being stabbed from the inside, and to some extent they were. People had lived through the Goblinisation in the 2020s that had brought Metahumanity Trolls and Orks, they'd described the pain of the experience as immense, but it was one thing to hear about it, and another to experience it. Her bones were reshaping from inside her body as new hairs and features pushed themselves out. It was hours before it finished. Later, she'd be assessed as a 'Changeling', the bombardment of mana had cultivated some buried genes deep down. Though what genes could cause you to grow fur all over your body, another set of ears, and a tail were far beyond her.
People like one Jasper Squashright from the 'Ork Rights Commission (ORC)' were the first to publicly speak, Jasper had said that labeling Changelings as 'Victims' was derogatory as it had been forty years ago. In the end, all the talk did for Blake was lead to more questions. She'd gotten far more stealthy as a result, if nobody saw you, you couldn't be the center of attention.
In the end, the Matrix had been her savior, hearing about other people who had gone through the same trials, a middle-aged troll who had grown more horns until his face was more bone than his skeleton, a wage-slave who had stabbed tough his keyboard while his hands turned into avian claws. They'd formed a community, so far apart but so close. But her largest inspiration? It came from a Shadowrunner. The man hadn't become a changeling, but in 2067 his team was doing a bank heist in Melbourne. Before they arrived the decker fell down and convulsed with pain, the mage only barely figured out that he was SURGEing and not under a Bioweapon. Blake could never find a job, if being inside a Sprawl wasn't bad enough, not a lot of conventional jobs looked kindly on changelings, and most of the Gangs back in the Sprawl were racially bound. In the end, she'd ended up joining a Neo-Anarchist group. They'd firebombed Mega-Corporation assets, they'd gotten into firefights with LoneStar law enforcement and they'd stolen Aries firearms, all for a poorly defined vengeance.
The day she left it was just her and Adam, the two tore through Aries drones like butter, Monofilament Whip and pistol in hand she'd carved through her fair share. When he'd set the charges she snuck out to the edge of the car, and cut the connection, letting the two separate. She'd gone to an old connection for help dropping off the grid next. With nowhere to go, and no System Identification Number (SIN) that marked her as anything less than a terrorist, Organised crime was her only reprieve.
Shadowrunner:
Blake Belladonna AKA: Beauty. Infiltrator.
Yellow: The Street Samurai
An Ork rode down on her Suzuki Mirage, the vibrant black and yellow paint contrasting against the steel grey buildings surrounding her. Stopping outside a joint only called 'The Club', awful sounding JetCore causing the ground to shake beneath her feet as she entered, honestly, she was never really a fan, SynthRock had always been a bit more to her tastes. With only a cursory glance it looked like your usual scum club you'd find in any city, AR lights? Check. Horny teens?, check some asshole in an oversized hoodie selling Novacoke and Deepweed? Check. What was less standard was the suit the guy at the bar was wearing, She was fairly certain that suits that fancy weren't usual in clubs like these, especially not on trolls that large.
Making her way over, she leant on the raised counter. And motioned to the bartender, a broad human unfortunate enough to need a full suit and blazer in a club full of sweaty dancing people, "Strawberry Sunrise, no ice, oh! and one of those little umbrellas,", as the man walked down to make the drink, the troll next to her spoke up, his voice coming out only slightly smoother than your usual troll, that is to say, horribly guttural and more like a dog trying to throat sing, "Aren't you a little young to be drinking?".
"Aren't you a little old to have a name like junior?"
At her response he grunted and spun himself around to lean on the counter, unwittingly causing the metal to creak under his weight, "So you know who I am," he glanced over to her before he flashed a toothy smile made worse by the fact his lower canines stuck out of his lower jaw already, "You got a name sweetheart?".
The Ork rolled her shoulders as she turned to face him, "why yes Junior, i have several," she took a step towards him running a finger down his suit, causing his heavy set brow to raise, "but instead of sweetheart, you can call me, Sir," Junior felt an augmented hand clench around his privates, causing him to bend down to her eye level, noticing only now the gleam of metal beneath her forearm separating metal from Synth-Skin.
Her once jovial tone gone, she pulled a window into Augmented Reality in front of Junior, "People say you know everything," she splayed her fingers and selected a photo, an ork woman in red and black, perhaps in her early twenties showed up on the screen, the way it had been cropped showed it had been taken from a group photo, "Tell me where I can find her, and I'll let you go,"
Junior's voice came out higher than man trolls thought possible, then again, not many trolls wanted to have their balls inside what amounted to a hand shaped metal vice, "I've never seen her before, I swear!"
"Excuse me," she tightened her grip causing a squeak from the Troll.
Through gritted teeth Junior rescinded "I swear, Sir,"
She smirked as a number of humans approached wearing matching suits and sunglasses, "Looks like we have an audience, this must be pretty embarrassing for you, huh?" she sighed, "awkward,".
Junior's eye was twitching, quite impressive when the skin covering that nerve was about a centimetre thick, "Listen, Blondie, Sir, If you want to make it out of this club alive i suggest you let me go, Now," as if coming out of the water, junior gasped for air and began walking away, limping slightly "You'll pay for that," he fished some red sunglasses, Novatech if she wasn't mistaken.
Back to her innocent party girl look she followed behind the Metahuman, before sliding her way in front of him, "Oh Junior, i was just playing with you, don't be so sensitive, come on, let's kiss and make up Okay?"
"Huh?" beat, "okay?" the Troll sauntered forward and did what could be described as a pucker if he did not have two shafts of bone sticking up from his lower jaw, before a metal fist wrapped in a poor approximation of skin slammed into his jaw, sending him spiraling across the floor. The club erupted into chaos as the usual denisins attempted to flee out of any space they could. The Ork meanwhile simply tore off the synthflesh that she'd hastily put over her full arm augmetics revealing glistening chrome underneath. Sliding out a chain from her belt, she slid a line of shotgun shells inside a compartment on the forearm, popping a shell out of the chamber with a twist of her wrist.
While Junior's men were still reeling she dove behind the counter and held out her arm, unloading a shotgun shot into the chest of the human at the bar, she heard the goons scramble as they took out their holdouts and began shooting. Their fatal mistake was trying to move up. Whenever one got within her effective range a shot would rocket towards them. The floor was stained red by the half-way mark.
"Why does it always have to devolve into a firefight?", she complained, removing the Ruger, her favorite sidearm, from the holster hidden under her jacket and taking potshots at the DJ. Seeing the man rocketed back by what amounted to a rifle bullet fired from a handgun, she peeked out to see two girls walking out in the open, and given how they were glowing, they weren't there for fun.
"Melanie, who is this girl?"
"I don't know Militia, but we should teach her a lesson,"
The Ork ducked back down before reaching into her pouch and feeding another set of shells into her Cyberware. Reaching over, she let six shot fly into the two, to which they began dodging and weaving around the shots, watching this, her only thoughts were, 'Fracking Adepts'.
Abandoning her cover, she made her way to the centre, repeatedly firing shell after shell into the two, only causing more acrobatics as the two began almost dancing around the shells. Taking the offensive, 'Melanie' kicked upwards, augmenting her momentum with magic, and her kicks with extra force while her sister launched over. The brawler had to retract the implants in order to block the incoming wave, one kick almost denting the shining chrome. 'Melanie' went to strike overhead and she saw her chance, loading a shotgun shell directly into her stomach, sending her flying. Running up to the other fighter, she blocked a swipe before kicking into her and uppercutting, unloading another shot into the red woman's head. As she crashed into one of the club's red fixtures, her sister's protective magic was failing, charging forward, she tried not to leave openings, blocking what she couldn't dodge before laying a smack with the full force of her augments into the back of her head, sending her down to the floor.
She turned around and lead a full strength punch as well as a shotgun shell into the neck of Junior, who's fancied his chances at a sneak attack, before grabbing him by the horns and slamming him against the window. In retrospect, it wasn't a surprise that a Troll upwards of 300 pounds being slammed against a glass window by an augmented Ork caused the windows to shatter, sending the both of them onto the pavement below.
Getting off her makeshift human shield and brushing herself off, a red glint caught her eye.
"Yang, is that you?"
The human in front of her cocked her head slightly,
"Oh, Hey sis,"
"What are you doing here?"
Yang just sighed, "it's a long story,
Yang Xiao-Long AKA: Goldilocks. Street Samurai
AN: i am well aware this will be obscure as all hell, but this idea was rattling inside my head for... far too long.
the yellow trailer fit too well to not to translate into Shadowrun. this is probably going to be a series of character shorts and oneshots inside this AU, hell i've started writng JNPR, Ozpin and Salem's gang up.
Oh and before i go, this is based in Shadowrun 4th Edition lore, mainly because i don't like GOD and what they did to deckers. have a good one- Yackronin