August 16, 2058

South Plains Security Consulting Offices

Regina, Algonkian-Manitou Council

~~~

After getting his arms deal, Leon, Sylvia, and Brandon started stepping up their efforts in the shadows a bit. They made several city-to-city courier runs, escorted some upper-class citizenry, and made more than enough money to cover living expenses. No big paying runs had come through either of the Mr. Johnsons that Leon trusted, but everyone could tell big things would be afoot for shadowrunners soon.

Word on the street was that an Aztechnology Strike Team had shot up a rumoured eco-terrorist cell of elves, near the industrial boomtown of Grand Rapids. The problem? It wasn't an eco-cell. It was an innocent elven birdwatching hobby group. The affair was kept hush-hush in the press once the mistake was realized, but tension was in the air. Streetfights, even in higher-class neighborhoods, were becoming daily events. The Algonkian-Manitou Council was a powderkeg, and all that was needed were a couple lit matches dropped in strategic locations.

A possible lit match came calling early one summer morning, as Leon answered his cell phone......

"South Plains Security Consulting, how may I help you?"

"Leon, it's Chief Laura Hawksford. Have you got any jobs coming up today?"

"......Uh, no?"

"I'm sending a copter your way in 15 minutes. We need you over in Humboldt right now, there was a ghoul attack last night."

Leon stood up from his dining room chair.

"How bad is it?"

"They raided two homes. The townspeople tried to bottle them up in an abandoned building outside of town, but they can't break in, and a couple died trying. It's you or it's no one Leon."

"Alright, we'll suit up."

Leon yelled at Sylvia and Brandon to ready the military armor, and abandoned breakfast to head into the armory. He would need some big guns and explosive ordinance for this.

Leon had done runs like this for Chief Hawksford before. Small towns were not covered by the policing net of Long Arms, the company in charge of law enforcement in the Council. Local neighborhood watches, shamanic societies, and corporate security (if it was a corp-controlled boomtown) could fill the gap, but if something truly serious came up, it was useful to Chief Hawksford to hire an outsider, like Leon, with the skill to handle big-time threats. Leon had handled a vampire in Humboldt before, as well as a gargoyle attack back when he was Wes LaFlamme. Leon had also done big jobs in other small locales, preventing them from becoming metaphorical and possibly even literal ghost towns. The Awakening had led to destruction in a number of small spots like Humboldt over the years, because of paranormal threats that the average joe with a gun couldn't handle, as well the inadequacy of policing forces like Long Arms that refused to do their job on a nationwide level.

This was another reason, in Leon's mind, why he couldn't be considered the bad guy compared to an ass like David Longmiles......

Leon grabbed his new Ares Alpha assault rifle, some grenades for its launcher attachment, and grabbed a second Ares Alpha, tossing it over to Brandon as he got his armor and got dressed. Leon also loaded up his Predator Pistol with an armor piercing clip and holstered it, along with a Ceska as his holdout pistol for desperate situations. Sylvia suited up and had her Heckler and Koch rifle loaded. Brandon was loaded for bear, and loaded with Bear, his magical totem and the source of his power. Quickly, the three got dressed and cleared a landing point, as a government chopper with a confident-looking pilot dropped in an open space in the South Plains compound to pick them up.

~~~

Ghoul bounty runs were usually the big step up for aspiring shadowrunners, and separated the wheat from the chaff, the quick from the dead, and the brave from the craven.

Ghouls came about as a result of a virus strain, referred to as the Human Meta-Human Vampiric Virus, or HMHVV for short. Those infected could (rarely) become vampires as well, and metahumans could also mutate into paranormal creatures, such as elves becoming banshee and orks becoming wendigo. To date, no vaccine or magic had ever been found to cure the disease (though not for a lack of trying).

Those who became ghouls gained increased speed and toughness, a mild allergy to sunlight, and a need to consume one percent of their bodyweight in human flesh each week in order to survive. Many ghouls became feral under the virus strain's influence, and hunted in packs, dragging prey back to abandoned buildings to feast on. Some ghouls retained their sanity, and worked backdoor deals with StreetDocs (and even some shadowrunners) to obtain bodies that needed to be disposed of as their daily meals.

Some ghouls with their sanity, however, didn't take such a meek approach, and actively hunted their prey. Ones that had awakened to magic kept their abilities as a ghoul, and could lead ghoul gangs to do their bidding via mind control magic. These guys usually presented the most trouble, and Leon had hunted down a few of them over the years.

Few in the world had any use for ghouls, seeing them as enemies of society by nature. There were movements to protect sentient ghouls out there in the world, although they weren't nearly as popular as pro-metahuman movements.However, Leon had heard rumours of a sentient ghoul kingdom being set up in Africa, taking in ghouls across the globe, and maintaining national diplomacy by having death sentenced prisoners from neighboring countries or nearby corporations sent to them for sustenance.

Overall, ghoul bounty runs could be very dangerous. Without good lights to see into their dark haunts, or good senses to know when the inevitable group dogpile would happen, even skilled shadowrunners could be mauled before getting a chance to fire a bullet or cast a spell. Leon had survived these hunts with his quick hands and keen instincts, but there was always the chance that the next run on an abandoned building would be his last......

~~~

(45 minutes later)

Leon, Sylvia, and Brandon dropped and rolled off the chopper, as it flew away to a local depot to refuel. The trio had radios to call in the pilot for a quick getaway if needed, but Leon had a fairly good feeling about this job. As long as they showed up before any more civilians got killed......

Leon jogged over to the site of the abandoned building, surrounded by a bunch of scared-looking farmers with baseball caps and antique weaponry. There were a couple tough-looking old men with Allegiance Shotguns, but Leon doubted the rest of them were really up for this, even if some of them had their blood up over their neighbors being killed.

"You from the military?" shouted one of the gun-toters.

"We're mercenaries, here at the request of Ceremonial Chief Laura Hawksford. What have we got?"

"They only sent three of you!?" screamed one heavy-set woman with a six-shooter.

"There's more to them than meets the eye." said an important-looking but dishevelled AmerIndian with office attire and a hunting rifle. "They were the ones who killed that vampire in the winter."

The crowd stirred a bit with that. There might be hope after all.

"Mayor Shinestar, sorry we're late, we just got the call this morning." said Leon. "What have we got?"

The Humboldt mayor, Billy Shinestar, had a complicated expression on his face, a mixture of hatred, sadness, helplessness, and disgust.

"A gang of ghouls raided a couple buildings on the outskirts in the middle of the night. They took a family and an old fisherman, and got noticed by a couple kids driving back from out-of-town. The kids woke up the neighborhood watch, two hotheads tried to go in this building to kill 'em, and now they're under those sheets over there."

The mayor gestured to a laid out sheet, with some mangled feet sticking out from it.

"We've surrounded the building in case they try to breakout......but these are farmers, clerks, just regular people. I don't know what they do if they rush us......"

Leon looked around the crowd. Those two tough old goats with shotguns rang a bell with Leon, but he didn't know why. The rest of the mob would probably run after the first couple shots missed. Leon knew ghouls had the sunlight allergy, but if they were desperate.....

"Alright, we'll breach the building and kill everything there. Tell those two old goats with shotguns to lead the watch on the perimeter. They might be desperate enough to run into the sun, but I doubt it......"

Leon trailed off towards the end, as he raised his assault rifle and plugged an exposed ghoul's head, through a deep crack in a boarded up window.

"That's one down. Any idea of how many we have to go?"

"......At least a dozen. I'm not sure how many were in the building beforehand......"

Leon sighed.

"Alright, we'll prepare for the worst. We might have to blow the building as a last resort. Sylvia, punch us a hole through those boarded up entrances and lets get started."

Sylvia took a deep breath as magical particles gathered around her, and let loose a powerful Fire Ball spell at a section of plywood covering up a doorway. A giant hole appeared as the fire dissipated, gas masks were applied, and the hunt was now on......