Author's Note

This story is a crossover between Shadowrun and EQG, with elements of FIM mixed in. It will necessarily get very dark, and there will be profanity and violence, but then, if you know Shadowrun at all, you knew that already. Here we go.

Not So Stealth 1.1

“Harmony, in position?” A purple Unicorn glanced around the Matrix, checking out the nearly invisible blue dots that indicated her team. In the physical world, she was a lovely elven maiden in a violet skirt, hands waving around. The AR system moved spellbooks into and out of her vision as what appeared to be a breeze swirled her skirt around her ankles. In the Astral spectrum, it became far more clear that it was a lesser drake gently pushing at her legs.

Across the street, mounted up on a heavy motorcycle sat a human female with ludicrously bright rainbow colored hair that shifted with a though, “Rainbow in place,” she leaned forward on the motorcycle, letting the thrum of the engine pulse against her belly.

Atop the fire escape of the same building sat a pale model, purple hair curling loosely over the cable that led to her cyberdeck interface, “I'm in place darling. Just say the word.” Rarity, the decker, always ready to take a shot at new ICE.

Behind the Unicorn stood a large troll, “Ah'm ready, Twilight.” Applejack was the real muscle of the team. Even if Rainbow's augments allowed her to launch through a plate-steel wall at speed, they didn't do much in the way of sheer strength. Applejack, on the other hand, was a megalith of Amazonian proportions, even before the augments that crackled with electricity behind Twilight.

One last voice entered her ears, emanating from a small blot of color in the back of a converted RV, “Overwatch deployed. Sentries deployed. Let me know when you need fire support.”

“Of course, Fluttershy, Darling.”

“Excellent. Harmony, initiate,” Twilight launched forward, feet dancing around the puddles on the aged pavement. Her astral presence was barely visible, right up until she reached the gate and summoned up the drake around her feet, “Spike, open the gate.”

The drake, Spike, rose nearly fifteen meters into the air, claws lifting the reinforced gate out of the ground and discarding it to the side. Almost immediately, Applejack stomped through the opening, slinging a massive autocannon. She was the distraction. Her part in the plan was to make the lower-level guards panic. To get the HTR team to come in. To bring in the one man they needed to see. Rainbow followed Applejack in, dancing lightly on her toes, slinging a pair of razor-edged blades. Twilight stood in the middle of the gate, arms raised, as she called on the powers of the astral plane to bring in noise. She wanted them to see. She wanted every security guard in the building to know Harmony was there. That only one man could stop them.

“ICE is a bit thick on this one, Twilight. It's pushing back pretty hard at the gates,” Rarity was struggling to push her way into the Host. Obviously they had someone skilled working for them. Twilight sighed, the sound turning into profanity as Rarity added, “Found the Demi. Blueblooded Bastard.”

“Fluttershy, get some support down here. Rarity, jack out!”

In the back of the RV, a pale hand slid down the flank of an Aztechnology Hedgehog, “Angel, go make momma proud. Take your brothers.”

The Hedgehog crawled out the back of the RV, tapping absently on the side of the trailer, which unfurled, revealing a large armored vehicle, loaded up with smaller combat drones. Tank was the name of it, though not the class. It was a converted Lone Star deployment vehicle loaded up with automation and drone-racks. And as the wheels hit the pavement, it showed itself to be much heavier too, cracking the pavement apart as it crawled up past Twilight.

Inside the RV, the pink-haired waif lowered herself into a hammock and closed her eyes, dropping fully into Tank's control center, lips barely moving to whisper out, “Ready. Rarity, may I please have some extra ICE here? If that's alright with you?”

Rarity responded almost immediately, diving into the security system of the APC and layering security on the fly, “Rock the doors, Fluttershy. Wreck them.”

An imperceptible dip of the head in the hammock responded as the APC picked up speed and roared past Twilight, who had wisely sidestepped. The tires chewed up the distance to the door as Applejack and Rainbow stepped off the driveway and off to either side of the broad staircase leading up to the front doors. The APC hopped the curb with hardly a blip in the speedometer and climbed the stairs like a possessed rocket, arcing into the air at the top. At eighteen tons, it was far from the most elegant leap, but since it landed the nose right on the door-handles at just under one hundred twenty kilometers an hour, it was sufficient to send Tank, and its occupants, through the reinforced glass and into the main courtyard. Immediately, drones launched, fliers, crawlers, and racers shooting off to secure the area.

“Deployed,” Fluttershy whispered, tongue gently sliding across her dry lips as she breathed slowly, “This better be worth it, Twilight.”

The purple-clad adept sighed, “I hope it is, Fiona, I really do.”

“Code Names, Twilight. Shit,” Rainbow barked into the comm-line. Applejack was just behind her, stepping through the broken glass, “Alright fearless leader, where is he?”

“I don't know. I can't sense him any...” She cut off abruptly as a sleek white blade pressed itself against her throat. The monstrous summoned warhorse nearby had Spike pinned to the pavement, and she swallowed carefully, “Brother.”

“Tara. What brings your specific brand of destruction to my workplace?” He was slender, nearly a head taller than her, and garbed in pure white, save the neon-blue crest on his motorcycle helmet. She only knew it was him because of the emblem etched into his blade. The crest of the House of the Setting Sun. The same circular emblem that was embroidered into the back of her coat. And he was positioned just right for her to put an elbow into his stomach.

He didn't go down. Instead, he made a choked laugh, then threw her to the ground, kneeling on her ribs, “Stand down Tara. You've been tagged a criminal, that means I should have taken your head off already.”

She coughed, looked up at him, and spat on his white visor, “I'd rather rot. Rarity?”

The softened whump of an air-rifle made her brother raise his head, just enough that the dart missed his barely armored neck, and instead slammed into his ballistic jacket, bending and snapping off. He sputtered something vile into his helmet, then brought his head down violently, slamming her head into the pavement beneath his helmet. “Tara, I told you to always wear a helmet. Boys, round them u...” A loud explosion rocked the compound as the numerous grenade-drones set off inside the building.