A/N: Based on a playthrough of 'The Third Eye' campaign by [H2SO4]Marauder in Shadowrun Hong Kong. Susan 'Fighter' Lei is the character Fighter from the anime Goblinslayer, with Warrior and Wizard from the same series in support. This story is a sequel to 'A Fighter's Story', found under Shadowrun/Goblinslayer crossovers. No knowledge of Goblinslayer is required (At all, in any sense). Fighter unfairly suffered a terrible end in the first episode, which prompted me to resurrect her as a Shadowrun character in the Shadowrun world, which is, of course, owned by the copyright holders.
Fighter remembered the Talos Pharma Run, among all the workanight bloodbaths .
Security had been waiting, that night, in the clean, orderly warehouse. Guns on the main door to blow her crew away. Then two drones broke through a window, behind the guards. She'd kicked in the door, smoke and stun grenades. Security went down in the crossfire, all but one.
The troll guard was huge, chest like two bulls in a sack. Chitin studs over a monster's face-battered with lead, still not down. Spreading both claws out, eyes like a snake. A trog Adept.
An Adept like her. She'd leapt from a forward stance, her sidekick struck home like an anti-tank round. Red Ki burst from her Killing Hands, blows that crunched in flesh, again, again, again.
The trog was slow but unbreakable, tough as leather. He staggered, wouldn't fall. Her knuckles bled like a virgin.
"Stay back! I can kill it!"
Her breath heaved through the snarl locked on her mouth. The trog swayed above her. She threw her power into one more blow; then her foot slipped, she staggered. The guard rooted himself, raised a claw overhead–then one of her crew quickly stepped in, blew the trog's head off. Their decker, who had cracked the computer, found the paydata, and wiped every security tape during the brawl, asked, were they quite done?
Punching over and again, a swaying tower in black. Better to remember that Run than her first Run.
The trog gangers that held her down. Stomped her into the grit, laughed as they tore away–NO, fragging NO, she wouldn't remember. Nothing but driving punch after punch into that fragging troll, even if it would never fall.
-0-
Apart from Ilsa, the guys from that Run had blazed into town and left just as fast. Sometimes Runners had to slot and run. Just like Harry had taken the fast boat to Hong Kong, left her behind in Seattle, where she'd always lived. He'd said he'd be back in a year, and it had been longer. Odds on, she'd never get to punch his stupid, bright-eyed face, just one more time.
The crew she'd joined for this night's Shadowrun, on a Renraku office block, hadn't exactly been her favourite. The Mage had been arrogant, the decker a nervous wreck. The Street Sam a drug fuelled psycho–working with an ork had been insanity she wouldn't repeat.
Which was all small comfort when, right now, all of them were dead where they'd fallen, in the flight from the building. She herself was dashing down a stairwell, Lone Star thundering behind, toward her last teammate. The Rigger, their van, escape.
Fighter's trim, muscled arms swung her around the turn in the stair. Thick hair flew back from a broad Cantonese face, that had been known to radiate smiles when the neighbourhood's kids had wanted a ball game, or candy. Tears stood in her eyes, now. Trog or whatever, no one deserved to end like that.
She hit the bottom of the stairs, launched herself out onto the parking level. Two Lone Star moved from the darkness, firing. She rolled, came up flinging a knife at a visor, a stalling measure. No time to draw on Ki–she took the second Star out with a leg sweep, bashed his head against a car. Until officers in pursuit clattered from the stairwell, aiming guns-she raced on.
Their Bulldog van was there. The team Rigger, Tifi, waving her on, firing her Warhawk–then the plunk of a tube-launched grenade, and the van went up like a fireball.
All eyes were on the blast–in that moment Fighter slipped out of sight between the vans. The Stars in black armour lowered their guns, moved slowly forward. After a minute of careful, silent movement, Fighter came out behind the ork with the tube-launcher, killed him with quick blows to groin, head, neck.
More gunshots. Shotgun pellets struck armour, one bit home in her flesh. She stumbled, ran on for the exit ramp, ran with her body low like a wolf. All the Stars were behind her, no van, but she would run until she dropped. She'd reached the foot of the ramp when the shutter came down like a mousetrap, on her back.
It threw her face down in the dirt, crushing her spine. The Runner they called Fighter screamed out rage and shame-she wouldn't even die on her feet, but the drekking floor!-before agony faded to darkness.
-0-
On her first Run, she'd been beaten by Trog gangers–only saved from being raped and killed by freak chance. All in front of the man she could have loved, except she'd been too innocent to know frag about anything, back then.
She had learned since that night, got stronger. She'd killed enough of the monsters that trafficked children and tortured women, that she could feel alright about herself, most days. Alright with the use she'd made of her father's training–but now that was done.
Running the Shadows never got simple. It could be the first Run, or the fifteenth, a frag-up or bad luck. The dice came up snake eyes, there was no second chance.
-0-
She was alone in a padded cell. There had been a hospital, Lone Star solitary, and she could tell it would end here. A bullet in her head, or everything Fighter knew happened to captured Shadowrunners.
Torture. Human experiments even longer and viler. Rape by every guard whose drinking pal she'd beaten to death, as well as the pigs who just wanted a China girl bigger than a C.
She tried to meditate, think on the Pure Land, any hope of seeing her father there. Her eyes still scoured the cell for any sharp edge, even if she was tied to the chair, she could...no. She cursed herself as weak, but she did not want to die. She shook with terror until she retched, but there had been so much drek, she just wanted life, a little peace...her soul was still wavering in such chaos between heaven and hell, when the man with the chrome face walked into the room.
The volume of gleaming cyberware under his expensive suit made him seem over-the-line inhuman, a robot built around some scraps of flesh. Even his hair was slick as oil. Fighter clung to the chair where she was tied, lips set, as the cyborg presented a file.
"You may call me Mr Nagendra. You are Susan Lei, AKA Fighter, a minor Shadowrunner active during the last year. Born without a SIN. I see that you prefer the vigilante killing of stray Halloweeners to releasing nanoweapons in crowded nightclubs, even if contracted to perform the latter."
His flat voice made Fighter feel like an insect whose rock had been flipped. Secrecy was her job, especially the fragging Antumbra job. Still, the how mattered less than–
"What's any of that to you, tin man?" A tiny, very robotic smile.
"You will be interested to hear that you died at 1700 hours last Thursday, in a car accident. We went so far as to give you a charming funeral, which was surprisingly well attended."
"You…"
Fighter could imagine who had been there, what they might have felt. She'd always tried to do what good she could, in a world of drek. That was all that made sense, but what good could she do, when nothing made sense?
"You seem to be a Runner of skill and conviction, opposed to the chaos ubiquitous in our present world." The chrome faced man went on, "However, you should understand that your efforts to realise social justice through theft and murder have realised…mixed results, at best. Organisation is required, even to keep the miserable world you know from sliding into inferno–and the name of this organisation is the Agency. We'd like to offer you a job."
"What agency?"
"The Agency. You wouldn't have heard of us. We offer our recruits excellent training, and, shall we say, extensive foreign travel. A fresh start, and a worthy use for your skills." The chrome faced man smiled again, so brief, "You will follow the direction of leaders, acting without oversight or restriction, to preserve the peace and stability of the entire Sixth World."
It didn't seem real. But you could find anything in the Shadows, if you dug deep enough. Still, the more things changed…
"…basically, I steal and kill for you, or I'm dead?"
"In a good cause. Consider that your past life is dead, your present life is a loan from us, and we are offering you a choice between these alternatives. Now."
Fighter thought for a second of Harry, returning to a Redmond where she was dead. Not even the Shadows would know what her father's martial arts had accomplished, and of course she was selling her soul, to someone…but she was a Shadowrunner. She stood against every storm, and came out alive.
"Okay. Whatever this Agency is, I'm in to the end."