Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Return to Life
Author's Note: For Christmas, I got the three Harebrained Schemes' Shadowrun games, and fell in love with the setting. Binged the games and had this story pop up in my head. I present it to you now!
"Why the fuck does my head hurt?" I groaned angrily as I tried to wake up after a long shift at the Waffle House. It felt like the worst hangover I'd ever had in my life, but as far as I could recall, I hadn't done any drinking last night!
'Although, things are kinda… blurry,' I thought to myself as I tried to put a hand to my head in a vain attempt to stop the pounding in my skull.
However, when I did so, I got clonked in the face by something hard and metal, and I let out a yelp of pain as it jarred me fully awake. It also knocked me out of bed, and I let out a groan as I picked myself off the floor.
"…This isn't my bedroom," I muttered, looking around in bewilderment.
It looked more like a crack den than a place anyone would willingly live, frankly. The floor was concrete and covered in dust and old food wrappers and takeout containers. Some sort of liquid had stained the walls and ceiling. Maybe blood, maybe vomit, maybe both, but it was there and it wasn't going anywhere.
Beyond that, I quickly realized I'd been on a couch instead of my bed, and there was a steel coffee table right next to me. It was frankly a miracle I hadn't rolled off the couch and smacked into that!
A ceiling fan turned lazily above my head, more by ancient inertia than power as far as I could tell. Nearby, I could see a door that led to an actual bedroom, but it wasn't much cleaner if the piles of dirty clothing on the broken mattress was any clue.
Pulling myself up, I was able to survey the rest of the room, which included a bathroom, also filthy, a kitchenette with a fridge I was terrified to look inside of, and two desk. One was a dresser or something, the other was a computer desk with a laptop and TV.
"The actual fuck?" I uttered in bewilderment. This didn't make any sense at all! Why was I here?! Had I been abducted and brought into a crack den to get my organs harvested?!
I tried to raise my shirt to see if there were any new scars on my body, only to freeze when my right arm came into view.
"What the fuck?" I hissed in horror.
Where a hand should have been, there was a metal caricature of an appendage. Slowly, my eyes trailed up the rest of the limb, and found that it had been replaced with a ridiculously high-quality prosthetic all the way up to my shoulder.
How?! HOW?! What was going on?! Had somebody covered my arm in a metal sheath? I cautiously tapped it and tried to pry a bit of metal aside near my elbow, only to find… shit, it was metal all the way through.
'Somebody abducted me to test military grade cybernetics?' I wondered. Because that was the only thing that made sense!
Hyperventilating a little, I staggered over to the dresser, hoping to find something to help me. A phone, keys, or some sort of clue! Anything!
Tearing open the drawers, I found clothes, some sort of USB cards that had digital numbers on the side (mostly zeroes) and a gun nestled in some underwear next to what looked a Blackberry phone.
Deciding to ignore the gun for now, I gingerly extracted the phone and wiped it off on my shirt (which wasn't much cleaner, unfortunately) and held it up to the light before turning it on.
'How do I get the password to this thing?' I wondered as the screen lit up before showing the words "PASSWORD".
Without conscious effort, my still fleshy fingers on my left hand suddenly began to move on their own, and they typed out the word "AwesomeSauce001".
Somehow, that was the correct password, and it unlocked the phone, only I was too busy having a panic attack as memories that weren't mine trickled into my mind… or rather, oozed, like sludge, and seeped in through a crack to fill a partially empty vessel.
I was… I was now Gavin Lariat, aka 'Hotsauce.' 30 years old. A human. A Mage. A Shadowrunner, based out of San Francisco. The year was… 2054. And holy shit, was that a bad thing!
As the memories arrived, I couldn't help but shudder in disgust and terror as I realized where, exactly, I was.
'Oh all the places to end up,' I thought with a grimace. 'Why did it have to be the place that makes Cyberpunk 2077 look like a cheerful playground?'
The world of Cyberpunk 2077 was nasty and doomed as shit, but was completely human and fully science based. Plus, a lot of the worst things were kept contained to Night City. The other cities in the world were not nearly as chaotic or crime-ridden. Sure, there were self-replicating AI mines in the ocean that made ocean travel nigh-impossible, and there'd been several ecological collapses, but in general it was still a manageable situation for the average person.
But in the world of Shadowrun? The whole damn planet was a Cyperpunk Dystopia! No, more than that, it was a FantasyPunk Dystopia, because in 2011, magic suddenly and without much warning returned to Earth, ushering in the so-called Sixth Age, an era where dragons and wizards did battle against cyborg supersoldiers and Mega-Corps in neon-lit streets.
Cool place to play a game or read about, but living there was a bad idea all around. Shadowrun had all of the evil, heartless Mega-Corps, shady science experiments and cyberware, obscene wealth gaps, and ecological disasters of Cyberpunk 2077, but had them expanded to encompass the whole globe while monsters and magic also ran rampant, throwing wrenches into things!
"Fuck me sideways," I grunted.
The cybernetic arm now made sense, but how'd I end up here in this weird world? Why was I in somebody else's body?
I slumped against the wall, hands pressed against the sides of my head as I tried to make sense of the sensory overload of having three decades crammed into my skull.
"Okay, okay, let me just… think," I grunted.
Gavin Lariat's life was… honestly, kinda shit. A lot of the past was missing, or blurry, but he grew up a street kid somewhere in the Northwest of the UCAS, the United States' successor, and started doing odd jobs for Fixers pretty early. He then became a Shadowrunner, basically the setting's version of an Edgerunner, because that was all he knew and was good at.
'Oh, and he's also a Mage,' I thought, holding up my organic hand and staring at it.
Like a muscle I hadn't been aware of until now, I could feel something coiled up and tense within me, eager for release. Relying heavily on Gavin's memories, I pulled on the feeling, reached for it, and grinned widely as a wobbly glimmer of light manifest in the palm of my hand.
"You know, suddenly getting reincarnated in this world doesn't seem too bad," I mused.
As I played around with the orb of light, I thought a bit more about what I recalled from half remembered books and textboxes. Magic – and by extension, Mages – was pretty interesting in the Shadowrun world.
'If I recall, some people can get their power from extra-dimensional spirits, and are known as Shamans. Then, there are the literal Kung Fu action movie people, the Adepts, who use their internal magic for superhuman physical feats,' I mused. 'And then, there's people like Gavin – and now me.'
Magic was power. It came from the Astral Plane, a realm of raw power not unlike the Warp in Warhammer 40k, but with slightly fewer nasties. Still plenty full of monsters and evil spirits, but mostly manageable.
Mages, on the other hand, were those who could directly tap into and channel the currents of the Astral Plane through their body and souls. They were powerful, arguably the most dangerous of all people in Shadowrun, but everyone else knew this and meant they got targeted first in a fire fight. What good was a fireball or face-melting curse when hot lead was zipping your way?
To say nothing of what a miscast spell could do. Shamans and Adepts might get hurt, but they'd recover. Assuming they didn't get possessed by a rogue spirit or cause their organs to explode. Mages, though? Transforming into a cloud of rust or a ray of light that converted flesh into salt were all entirely possible. If you failed to control your magic, it'd kill you.
That meant Mages died young, became powerhouses, or stayed weak. And unfortunately, thanks to the memories I now had, Gavin was the latter.
"His luck was obscene," I muttered as I tossed the ball of light into the air. "Guess something had to compensate for his lack of talent."
Gavin's skill with magic was kinda terrible. He knew several spells, but could only reliably cast two without much issue.
Even Arcane Bolt, the basic bitch spell that was just a blast of raw magical energy every Mage could use almost instinctively, had little stopping power. It could hit with the force of a baseball going fifty miles an hour at best, and didn't cause any real damage, even when it exploded!
'Though it does create a lot of light,' I mused, bouncing the orb of energy in my hand. It might not kill what it hit, but it made for an effective flashbang.
I tested this theory out by tossing the orb at the ceiling, and wincing as it hit with a crack before bursting into a flash of eye-searing white light.
'Neat, that works for if I ever want to blind somebody,' I thought, blinking away the spots from my eyes.
As for the spells Gavin could cast properly? They were not from the video games, but rather the tabletop version. Their names? Stench, and Hot Potato.
Stench did what the name implied. It created a truly horrific stench that overwhelmed a person, causing nausea, disorientation, and everything that came with that. The smell was just an illusion, though. It only existed in a person's head, though it affected multiple targets at once, and could hit allies if the aim was off.
The second spell, Hot Potato, was another Illusion-type spell, one that made a person feel like whatever they were holding was suddenly red hot and burning them, causing them to drop it involuntarily. It worked best on metal weapons, but anything could do. Make it feel like their helmet was too hot, or their boots, or heck, piercings and cybernetic implants, and they'd try to get the offending objects off of their body. All of which opened them up for attack while they were distracted.
Of course, it was also an area of effect spell, meaning if you had poor accuracy, the Mage could cause his own allies to feel like their metal bits were burning.
Despite those drawbacks, the two spells were really quite useful for crowd control, as well as overwhelming or distracting large groups, letting Shadowrunners slip away or take out their opponents.
'Okay, I can sort of see how he might have survived as a Shadowrunner with just these spells,' I admitted, looking more closely at his memories.
With his luck aiding him, Gavin had done more than alright, even if he couldn't throw destructive spells around. He also had a low cunning and grasp of guerilla tactics in the streets, and could navigate gang politics and the slums with ease. But really, it was almost embarrassing how little Gavin had taken advantage of his magic and rarely experimented with what he was good at.
Now, as somebody with an outsider's perspective and knowledge, it was clear to me that Gavin's issue was that he was trying to be something he wasn't. His magic was clearly suited for the Illusionist's path. But he'd tried so hard to force himself into the mold of a Battlemage because it was 'wiz' (or cool for those who weren't cyberpunked youths of 2054).
'But a proper Illusionist could waltz through security and steal data or assassinate somebody without anybody noticing, not even security cameras,' I mused. But for Gavin, it just hadn't been flashy enough, and so he'd ignored his potential.
What a waste. I could only shake my head in disappointment. Still, here I was, in his body, giving ol' Gavin a second chance for both of us.
'Now, if only I could remember why I was here in the first place,' I thought with a grumble.
As for why I now occupied Gavin's body… well, his most recent memories were a bit clearer, but not by much. Six months ago, there'd been a run gone wrong. It had cost him his right arm. Mangled beyond belief, it was sheer luck he'd made it to a surgeon to keep him from bleeding out and fit him with a new limb.
Unfortunately, cybernetics interfered with magic. All living creatures on Earth, be they human, orc, elf, or even rabbit or hydra, possessed magic, and it took the form of Essence. Essence was tied to the body, mind, and soul, and the more of a person's body was replaced by cybernetics, the less Essence they'd have.
Take too much Essence away, replace too much of yourself with machinery, and you died. Every person had a different Threshold Limit for Cyberware based on their Essence, but Mages and all who used magic needed Essence for their Magic.
In the games, for magic users, Essence determined how many spell you could 'hold' and cast, as well as calculating results for magical effects. Somebody with Six Essence would have stronger magic and spells effects than somebody with only three, for instance.
And with a cybernetic arm replacing his meat-and-bone one, Gavin's already below average magical talent had weakened, and from there, plummeted, as the missing Essence interfered with his casting.
Now, there were ways around this. Aside from using Talismans, Fetishes, potions, or trying to make deals with a spirit to borrow their magic, Gavin could have gotten a replacement organic limb instead of cybernetic. Or he could have splurged and cloned himself a new limb. But all of that was expensive, and Gavin had the issue of having AB-negative blood, meaning he needed blood and body that matched, and this was a rather hard to find type.
This meant that Gavin was on a long waiting list for a matching donor limb unless he could pay to skip the line or get something cloned. But without any good gigs due to his worsening performance, he couldn't cough up the Nuyen for any sort of operation, and this led into a nasty downward spiral.
No magic meant no gigs, which meant no money, which meant no chance of getting the operation that could restore his magic… on and on.
Desperate for any chance, no matter how flimsy, it appeared that Gavin had overdosed on… something. A pill that supposedly could 'Awaken' non-mages and grant magic back to those who'd 'burnt out.'
Whatever it'd been, it was snake oil, and the stuff had killed him. Thanks to that, I was now occupying his empty vessel.
'Poor, dumb bastard,' I thought with a grimace as I felt the linger echoes of Gavin's hope as I watched a memory of him down a whole bottle of pills. In his mind, it'd either work, or it'd kill him, and at that point, that was all the Mage wanted.
I looked down at my hand and called up the magic once more, summoning the glowing ball with a fascinated look.
"Doesn't seem like his Essence problems are affect me," I mused aloud. "Is it because this isn't my body that I don't feel the loss? Or is my soul somehow stronger than Gavin's, and compensating for any missing Essence?"
Could honestly be both, or neither. Casting magic was as much a matter of self-confidence and emotion as it was using the right words, gestures, and reagents. Magic required intent, belief, and Willpower. And if Gavin had stopped believing in himself… well, it made sense that his magic would abandon him as well.
But what else could he have done? I was cheating as I had meta-knowledge of the system and the Shadowrun world as a whole, but he was a street kid who barely had a Middle School level of education and had taught himself magic through trial and error.
'I have advantages over him. I know the theoretical far better than he ever could, to saying nothing about certain things kept secret, or events that will happen in the future.'
Like the existence of and eventual invasion by bug spirit into Chicago, or a dragon running for president of what was left of the United States of America, or the fact that there was a secret society of actual, factual immortals running around and meddling in reality…
"Ah, damn it, if only I could remember more about the setting," I grunted aloud in annoyance. "I wish I'd paid more attention to my friend's ramblings!"
Most of what I knew of Shadowrun came from a few tabletop sessions and the three Shadowrun video games: Return, Dragonfall, and Hong Kong. My friend, who'd been way more into the lore than I, had shared some interesting tidbits, but I'd only listened with half an ear.
I paused, frowning. 'Wait… why can't I remember his name?'
That was… It was Tim, yeah? No, Tom? It… it had started with a 'T' hadn't it?
Suddenly, the whole transmigration situation seemed a lot less fun, and I frowned heavily before putting my head in my hands.
My spiral into depression was halted by a sudden and loud chirping that came from my laptop. Somebody was trying to contact me using my email. Something only a few people had access to, according to Gavin's memories.
"Who the hell calls a man at… three in the morning?" I grumbled, pushing myself off the wall and glancing at the time on my not-Blackberry commlink.
I wobbled slowly over to the computer console, and a few clumsy button taps later, a face that triggered old memories from my new body appeared on the cracked screen.
It was a human man, with spiked, bleach blond hair and blue eyes that had a twinkle in them. He looked pretty shit, though, with oily skin and dark bags under his eyes that spoke of long nights awake and drinking.
"Sam?" I whispered, the name surfacing into the forefront of my still confused brain.
Sam Watts. Shadowrunner. An old friend. And the man whose death was the trigger for the plot of Shadowrun Returns.
"Hey, Hot Stuff," Sam smirked into the camera. "Probably surprised to see my face again? …Yeah, same. Sorry, but if you replied, you probably look pretty stupid now!"
He laughed at his lame joke and against my better judgement I snorted. As if he could hear, his grin widened, before softening.
"So, if you hadn't yet caught on, this is a recording, one that you're only getting because, well, I'm dead."
My hands clenched as I watched the video message, and even though I knew the promise of a hundred thousand Nuyen upon solving his murder was a lie, part of me, as well as remnants of Gavin, wanted to .
Sam Watts had been an absolute dick. A raging alcoholic who tried to find solutions to all of his problems at the bottom of a glass or from a bottle of pills. And somebody whose jokes were so lame, if they were a horse they'd be shot and turned to glue.
But he'd also been a Shadowrunner, and had had Gavin's back on many a gig. They'd saved each other countless times, and gotten shitfaced in celebration often. There was a bond between them, something that needed to be honored one last time.
'Not to mention, if I don't go… the Brotherhood will turn Seattle into a Bug Hive,' I thought with a grimace.
"Sorry, Sam," I muttered as I turned off the computer. "But I'm going to solve your murder and save the world."
I just hoped he could forgive me for killing his sister in order to do so.
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Author's Note 2: Here it is! Chapter 1 of my new story. I will upload several chapters in rapid succession until we reach the point that our MC unlocks multiversal travel. At which point, uploads will slow down to a more regularly spaced out upload schedule.