Far, far away, in a fragging awful place called San Diego, lived a normal boy: Marco Diaz.
"HiiiYA!" One chi infused karate chop, and monster brain matter splattered out the skull, into its own mouth and was quickly squashed along with its lower jaw as a powered snap kick sent the misshapen mass of teeth, horns, feathers and scales, spinning end over end as it flew off back into the dark, foreboding alley from whence it came.
A tossed grenade made sure whatever else was in there wouldn't feel left out.
Some people have called him careful and responsible.
"FERAL GHOULS COMING THROUGH!" Hopping onboard in one leap, the rider on the glitz custom chopper checked the empty street, put on a helmet and flipped on the proper signal lights before roaring through an abandoned highway, past a hellish landscape of bombed out urban ruins and radiated wastes while leading a truly impressive horde of ghouls slavering for his flesh in the dust.
Just because he didn't live life on the edge.
"Descanso en paz." The homemade flamethrower's gout of burning napalm arced through the air for greater range before enveloping a truly impressive horde of bisected ghoul bodies in a text book example of low risk corpse disposal.
The Kreig strain virus made victims ravenous cannibals but robbed the afflicted of normal sight and cognitive abilities. Letting a prepped and easily visible monofilament wire with safety lights strung between two lamp posts end them to the last.
Or try to control awakened animals.
"I am sorry, but your time is over. It is time for the Great Sleep." His stark black toreador clothes were ruined. Tired, filthy, yet unscratched, actually triumphant…but pitying, Marco knelt before the red eyed bull as it glared at him and tried to gore with night black horns but it was pointless. Steely hooves that could have crushed his skull no longer had the strength to stand. The beast's mystical blood had been spilling into the fields all day. Hide that could shrug off bullets was festooned with enchanted banderillas.
Raising his bloody enruned spada for the final estocada, Marco watched as the fire left the animal's eyes and dim until it became a dull black. The mortal shell wounded beyond its ability to serve as host soon shrank in on itself, the mighty bull decomposing before his eyes, mystically spreading the green glow of vitality back to the corrupted soy fields it had trampled so carelessly in its rage.
A spirit stone lay untouched and empty by his feet.
Marco was disappointed of course. His Spirit Quest had started off so promising this time, but like the other times he had tried before, it just did not feel right to just take his prize no matter how hard he fought for his victory. He began to doubt if he would ever succeed and consoled himself with the knowledge that though he failed, there was one less rampaging spirit in the world.
In the place beyond space, Wolf howled. Coyote laughed. Eagle watched Snake slither away as Cat hissed at sleeping Bear. Racoon facepawed though.
He liked having work.
"Ere ya go boss! Goblin Dogs, smokin hot!" Feeling utterly stupid with a neon pink mohawk, fake tats and tacky costume, Marco smiled extra wide, letting the flickering public high school bathroom lights shine off gold ringed tusks. Not laughing at how the pampered archology brats were trying to pretend they were tough was harder than getting the damn Goblin Dogs, but when slumming, out of town corp kids wanted to rebel with daddy's credits, Marco wasn't too proud to dress up like a bad tri-vid Ork ganger and sell them some "Authentic Street" experience.
It wouldn't be so sad if Marco didn't get quietly booked for the job by their dads 2 weeks in advance.
And he was about to get whole lot more, because today was Graduation Day. By tradition, the most promising student got a corporate sponsored SIN!
Washing out the cheap dye and fake tats, Marco looked at the mirror, which was really a shorted ad screen that was supposed to sell the latest skillsofts chips promising to make long division instantly instinctive and sighed at the tusked face looking back at him. His brown hair, eyes and unremarkable light tan skin should have made him normal but he was born as a child of the 6th world, one of the countless that Awakened when magic flowed back into the world, and thus revived the dormant bloodlines of Orks, normal just wasn't going to happen.
Marco was always going to be bigger than a normal human, stronger, tougher and tusked with sharper teeth and pointed ears to boot. He was a boy in a monster's body.
"I'm getting too old for this drek." At 14, he was technically still young but legal classifications didn't always follow reality. Biologically, he was closer to a 30 year old man. By actual 30 he'd be ready for retirement.
And he'd be lucky to see 50 before his heart gave out.
Which meant his dreams of becoming a legitimate doctor, unless he was willing to go the "easy" route implant skillware directly into his brain, had to face up to the stark reality that the traditional Med School route would be a pointless waste of time. Even if could qualify for a student loan with his sketchy background or a find school willing to let him enroll in the first place, he'd never be able to pay off his debts with the time he had left.
At best, he'd have to make do with an accelerated high school education. And while it seemed lacking, Marco knew that a high school diploma made him a rarity among orks. Far too many of his fellows simply dropped out. Falling in with gangs, joining tribes, or worse, taking the demeaning, menial jobs like being janitorial staff on garbage island.
Some even became Shadowrunners.
A profession with a near certainty of death or worse the longer you stay in. Where you could face anything from mil spec drones, high level spirits, abominations, hostile magics and secret super weapons or anything in between. Even losing limbs still meant being unable to walk into a sanctioned hospital for treatment for fear of being made, no insurance, possibly getting banned permanently from legitimate businesses and unable to access even basic transactions, the attention of ruthless bounty hunters, professional corp retribution forces, the ever present reward for turning in your fellows leading to a short brutal life full of paranoia and betrayal before being dragged into a black site that doesn't exist to become a disavowed unperson as you get cup cut open for parts, chipped into servitude, or…
Marco was freaking out so much that the sharp sting of hand meeting ass caught him totally by surprise. He shrieked but was cut off by being spun around and kissed deeply, the harsh taste of unsweetened soykaf and moonshine filled his mouth.
The perfume of sea breezes surrounded him as he took a breath, a vision of blonde hair with an aqua streak, mint green eyes and freckles was currently giving him a hot, sloppy kiss and her tight grip on his rear made disengaging difficult. A buxom body ground against him shamelessly.
Still, corded muscles gained through years of hard labor and intense training broke the hold and with more practice than he really should have, spun her around so that her arms were pinned behind her for cuffing in a picture perfect Lone Star double arm lock. She merely smirked at him over her shoulder and ground her shapely butt into his now uncomfortably stiff and tight crotch.
Taking a deep breath and wishing his self-control was being tested by walking on hot coals instead, Marco growled. "Janna, for the last time, cut that out! It was creepy the first time and It hasn't gotten better since."
The girl in his hands smiled impishly. Features melting away from the classic beauty of a California Girl into the untamed charm of an Ork Medicine Woman. "That's not what you said last night."
It was a wonder that he still had blood to become flush with, considering where most of it seemed to be going. "I was drunk."
"Pfft. You had two mugs of Hurlg. You can chug three at once without even feeling it. Now either bend me over or let me get to my knees. Either is fine with me."
Marco was about to say something but found he was too occupied by the feel of Janna's hands on him. Somehow having undone his belt, zipper and gotten past his Mackie Hand underwear without him noticing.
Again.
But as distracting as Janna's hands were, his sharp ears heard the faint but familiar sound of artificial spider legs climbing through a vent and he hissed urgently. "Hide."
Both he and Janna moved with a speed that would have impressed a chromeboy. Janna ducking out of sight under the sink and Marco leaned to add cover.
A split second later, a custom spider drone popped out and broadcast his mission control's voice. "Hey Marco! You didn't answer your com so I thought I'd send Spider-3 out to check up on you."
Marco felt Janna palm the deactivated device into his pockets and sighed. "I'm here Oskar. What's the situation?"
"All green. The kids got into the designated taxi and are no longer our problem. Looks like a couple of Lone Star patrol cars are providing escort back to downtown corp territory. Just in time too. Things are getting a little weird a little early."
Marco didn't like the sound of that. There was no room in his 23-step plan for anything but absolute perfection today. "Define weird."
"Well, asides from the usual assortment of nondescript black cars, company vans, your sweet ride and rust buckets like yours truly, there looks like there is a fancy carriage out here with two custom chimeras acting as horses…here, Spider 3 will tap the feed from my eyes into the bathroom screen so you'll see what I mean."
Marco looked at the grainy image from Oskar's basement bargain cybereyes and blinked. Awakened animals were fairly common in Hopi territory. The tribe weren't a great Horse People but they, like most of the NAN tribes, favored using animals over cars as transport to be closer to nature and the land but this was above and beyond.
Looking like lionheaded dagons than anything else, using them seemed to serve no real advantage but for the effect of pomp as the beasts were attached to what looked like a fairy tale carriage complete with a coachman in royal looking regalia.
His first impulse after trying to spot hidden weapons was to try and spot a camera crew to see if a studio was trying to make a fantasy drama tri-vid show.
"Any clue as to who they are?"
"Nothing my cheap ass recog programs can tell me about. But whoever they are, they don't seem to like the other recruiters very much. They're all giving each other plenty of space so safe bet is they are just another bunch of recruiters. Some subsidiary company of EVO group or Horizon group maybe?"
Marco thought back to all the favors called in, all bribes payed, all the distasteful tasks performed in order to arrange this day and admitted to himself that it just may be the case. Fixers couldn't always be sure they could deliver what they promised so understating their pull happened from time to time.
"Also, one of these days you're going to have to tell me how you got Brittney Wong of all people to send a Wuxing affiliated scout out here."
Oskar turned his head to look at a non-descript man wearing a plain black business suit and glasses. He drove an unmarked plain black car with dark tint and no identifying features.
However, when Oskar turned on his directional receivers, the man's position was lit up with heavy signal traffic and Wuxing standard crypto code frequencies. This wasn't just some bottom rung level recruiter. This was the kind of guy that reads the reports of bottom rung recruiters. Maybe even lower tier management deciding to go slumming for old times sake.
"Sorry Oskar, it's between me and Miss Wong. And she won't appreciate you nosing in. So as a favor to a friend, please drop it for now. I promise to tell you all about it once my job for her is done."
Marco waited tensely for Oskar's answer. They were friends of course, favors were exchanged and they had each other's backs (and blackmail material) but Oskar was a Net Nomad that believed freeing data was a moral duty. But in the face of a genuine offer of reliable first hand intel from a conspirator…
"Whatever you say man. You've always given me the heads up if you suspected something shady so I'll trust you on this chum. Gonna check up on the rest of the team. Can't have them screwing up in the last 10 minutes."
The ad screen went dark and the faint of scurry of Spider-3 started to fade as the drone left.
That was when Marco sighed in relief just before his pants fell to his ankles.
He looked down to see Janna on her knees smiling up at him. "Janna! We don't have time for this!"
She just shrugged. "We got 9 minutes, and I'll watch the tusks."
Author's rant: Yeah, this thing took waaaay too long to write (thought I'd take only a day or so but ended up needing weeks o_O), and I'm just letting the words flow through me without much thought because I honestly don't have the time or brainpower to pay meticulous attention since I need that brain power for work.
Anway, new fan of Star VS The Forces of Evil and long time Shadowrun fan. Any comment and suggestions would be appreciated.