History Literature / ShadowrunStorytime

* TheShadowKnows: More accurate to say that the Shadow Metaplane ''itself'' knows and changes your form to match. When inside of it, Wildcard looks like a 1920s gangster with a porcelain face, Locke looks like an anthropomorphic Aztec temple, Bend looks like a cross between Sam Fischer and James Bond, and Dervish looks like... [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers Dervish]].

** The original Ares run, which kicked off the Two-Times Arc. [[spoiler:The original conflict (the kidnapping the team was hired to solve) was between two Ares department heads, which is in turn part of a much larger conflict between two Ares factions. Two-Times hired a dozen running teams as part of the job, using their actions as a smokescreen to disguise his own gambit (compromising the global Ares network). Horizon was also running a "concerned citizen" act by plastering footage of the kidnapping everywhere to try and Ares look incompetent.]]

** As noted by [=TwoDee=], the UCAS has an informal agreement among Shadowrunner teams that means they won't screw each other over for no reason. The running team out for Tank's head choose to non-fatally incapacitate Geppetto, 2D, and Dervish when they execute Tank for this reason; they weren't involved in his feud beyond hiring Tank on. In return, 2D and their hacker later work to cover each other by erasing the killer team from the murder scene's CCTV footage and framing Tank as a criminal intending to do terrible things to 2D.

--> '''Bend''': "I may have strayed from the path a little."

** 2D sells Trout out to Lone Star after Captain Green shoots him several times and leaves him bleeding in the street. This is {{Justified|Trope}} by Trout's status as TheLoad and the ''massive'' liability he posed to the team after that incident.

* LaserGuidedAmnesia: Geppetto uses his black magic to strip all the good memories from the SoleSurvivor of an enemy running team, courtesy of a bit of inspiration from Dervish.

** [[BackAlleyDoctor Doctor Laughsalot's]] reaction to hearing the word "Horizon," in connection to Shadowrunners needing medical aid is to swear, shout he doesn't know them, and hang up.

* SevenDeadlySins: Dante's Inferno is a seven (technically nine) floor club with each level themed around one of the sins. Knowing that the next job (their first triple-A run) might be their last, each team member promptly decides to indulge in one, resulting in a night of mayhem for each.

** Evo Biomedical's Seattle branch and 2D have a rather unpleasant history thanks to the former trying to dissect him and the latter replying by bombing Evo clinics with remote-controlled drones. The corporation serves as a major threat to (and a source of paranoia for) 2D in the early story, culminating in [[spoiler: Evo sending a hit squad after him during the Jetblack Run that promptly gets wiped by the ghouls at John's compound.]] After this, they start to take more of a backseat as the game heads into the Two-Times Arc, aided by the previous department head being purged and replaced by one willing to call a truce with 2D.

* AxCrazy: Gillette of the Nightengales is borderline cyberpsychotic, a side-effect of having most of her limbs and bones replaced with cybernetics. [[spoiler: This is exploited by the team to goad her into essentially breaking the Nightengales as a group.]]

** John the Ghoul, who runs a clinic for ghouls and the occasional desperate Shadowrunner out in the Barrens. After [[spoiler: Geppetto ends up looking like post-shooting 50 Cent (with less rapper and more dying)]], he oversees their medical care; later, he's responsible for [[spoiler: saving Geppetto's life after the run that ended his career in the shadows]].

* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Geppetto]] actually died for a couple days before [[spoiler: coming back as a Banshee.]]
* BadCopIncompetentCop: The fifth-rate [=HardCorps=] as encountered in Vegas is completely useless at their job. One member seems at least somewhat skeptical of 2D's sob story about [[spoiler:Tank's death]], but his boss buys the entire thing and quickly goes on a racist tangent.

** Tweak absolutely hates having anyone but her touch her weapons. [[spoiler: A faked schematic implying Gillette has been planning to graft her custom Ares Thunderbolt onto her own limb (coupled with Bend tampering with her drugs) is enough to make her outright homicidal.]]
* BlackAndGreyMorality: Roughly the tone of the story, though the earliest runs are more ALighterShadeOfBlack. While the team aren't exactly the most morally morally upstanding of people, their targets are usually various degrees of certifiable asshole (such as Two-Times, [[spoiler: [[ChildEater Mrs. Wellers]], and Alvarez]]) or corrupt corporations that can generally absorb the hits dealt to them.

* BreakingTheFellowship: Once the Final Run is over, the team collectively retire from the Shadowrunning business and split up to pursue their own ambitions. [[spoiler: They give Brianna her share of the job (all fifty million nuyen of it), share one last toast at the Faulty Bar, then leave as a group, with each member going in a different direction without a backward glance.]]

** Terrence Jackson reappears once more, near the end of the story. [[spoiler: He becomes Wildcard's roommate while he needs to lay low after the team's foray into the Shadow Metaplanes]].

** Captain Joseph Green keeps running into the team, with almost every encounter ending in him being beaten down, knocked senseless, or otherwise inconvenienced by the team. [[spoiler: Finally subverted in the epilogue, as he becomes "Little Texas," Dervish's ARES TV co-star and StraightMan, along with gaining Dervish's respect for real for offing [[{{Jerkass}} Taka]] with a motorbike.]]

** After finding out that [[spoiler: the car they've been pursuing was a decoy and Mr. Wilkins daughter is still in enemy custody]], an enraged 2D hacks the car and tries to ram it into a wall. When the enemy sammy bails, 2D turns the car around and tries to ram him. And then he starts hacking every other nearby car and sending them after the sammy as well.
** Taka, the backstabbing oni crook from the Tokyo run, ends up [[spoiler: being taken out by "Little Texas" in the epilogue when Texas rams him with a motorbike]].

* ColdSniper: Dervish becomes this for a bit after [[spoiler: he has a ventilation shaft unwelcomely introduced to his brain via a sniper's bullet]]. While he gets better later, he can still revert to this given the right trigger.

* CrazyPrepared: Everything about [[JerkAss Two-Times]], who obsessively has a backup for every element of an operation - two teams, two comms networks, etc. His location has to be found by getting three separate satellite uplinks and then storming his supervillain lair that's in an active warzone. [[spoiler: And even then, he's prepared for that -- Two Times is actually in Newfoundland, with the Bogota lair being a decoy intended to lure the pursuing shadowrunners into one place so that he can [[KillSat hit them with a Thor Shot]] and get away cleanly.]]

* DealWithTheDevil: After [[spoiler: a Man Spirit's disobedience gets Dervish shot in the head]], Geppetto strikes a deal with [[SatanicArchetype Adversary]]. In exchange for Adversary and his spirits' full cooperation with Geppetto, [[WillingChanneler Adversary gets to possess Geppetto's body whenever he sleeps]] and get up to whatever mischief he wants (barring anything that would harm the team.)

* DiabolicalMastermind: Wildcard's forte, whether it be in a bank heist or with the team of runners. It's why he was sprung from prison and also why [[spoiler: he decides to use his "wish" to found a criminal contact empire when he retires with his 52 million Nuyen reward]].

** After the team finishes a nice dinner with one of their Mr. Johnsons, Wildcard reveals that [[spoiler: the Mr. Johnson for that run is one of the Great Dragons, Schwartzkopf, giving them the job as a favor to another Great Dragon, Lofwyr]].
** After the team critically glitch a navigation roll during an escape, they end up on an isolated island occupied by a single old man in archaic clothing. [[spoiler: He promptly introduces himself as the Great Dragon Ryumyo and more or less tells the team to get off his lawn, giving them a number of buff spells to speed them on their way]].

* EvilGloating: [[spoiler: Two-Times]] indulges in a moment of this, mocking the team and monologuing about his EvilPlan once they [[spoiler: find that his lair in Lagos is actually a decoy.]] Unfortunately for him, it promptly backfires ''hard'' as [[spoiler: 2D back-hacks his communications and starts engaging him in cyberspace, ultimately leading to Two-Times death.]]
* EvilPlan: Two-Times' ultimate plan is to [[spoiler: take over the global Ares satellite network]], with the Shadowrunner teams he hired working to facilitate this and draw attention away from himself.

** Dervish becomes the most well-known runner in Seattle by the end of the campaign. On top of that, [[spoiler: he gets a reality show about his life and acts as an Ares Megacorp "celebrity commando", with Ares financing his missions fighting crime around the world]].
** Geppetto is indicated to have become infamous both publicly and in the underworld [[spoiler: after his retirement and coup of the Merlyns]], being described as a real-world comic supervillain.

* GagPenis: An interrogation is sidetracked when the crew strips down their target and discovers he has an enormous cyberpenis that hangs down to his ''knees''. Geppetto actually steps to the side at first glance because he fears there's a cybergun hidden in there. [[spoiler: 2D gets him to talk by hacking the poor bastard's cyberpenis, [[BlackComedy then having it imitate a teacup ride]].]]

** The original Ares run, which kicked off the Two-Times Arc. [[spoiler: The original conflict (the kidnapping the team was hired to solve) was between two Ares department heads, which is in turn part of a much larger conflict between two Ares factions. Two-Times hired a dozen running teams as part of the job, using their actions as a smokescreen to disguise his own gambit (compromising the global Ares network). Horizon was also running a "concerned citizen" act by plastering footage of the kidnapping everywhere to try and Ares look incompetent.]]
** The final job, to a '''ridiculous''' extent. No less than four of the Great Dragons are involved, along with a handful of Corps and half a dozen movers and players. [[spoiler: To wit, the team is hunting down a rogue Aztechnology shapeshifter in the Tir, who's trying to sell an extremely powerful magic artefact to Horizon for a huge amount of orichalcum while using four separate Shadowrunner teams to protect him. The team is working for Schwartzkopf the Great Dragon, who is in turn acting as the Johnson for Lofwyr and Hestaby, both of whom want the artefact (heavily implied to be a dragon egg). Ginsen (revealed to be a black ops team payrolled by Sirrurg the Destroyer) is trying to hijack the delivery, steal the artefact, and screw Aztechnology over even harder in the process. Ares Macrotechnology and 2D also get involved under the excuse of protecting an Ares asset, with their actual goal being to exfiltrate a prototype next-generation super-soldier (A.K.A.: Dervish) and convince him to join Ares.]] For those struggling to keep track of everything, a rough and very spoileriffic chart of all the gambits going on is [[https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/2014/37016947/images/1419779858859.png here]].

* HappilyMarried: [[spoiler: 2D and his "ork juggalo girlfriend"]] are married by the end of the series. [[spoiler:Bend and Emily]] end up marrying after the events of the series.

* HealingFactor: Geppetto gains one after [[spoiler: being turned into a Banshee]], letting him regenerate from injuries much more quickly and regrow a few missing parts (teeth, for example.)
* HeelFaceTurn: [[spoiler: After the Two-Times arc, 2D retires from shadowrunning and goes from being a black-hat hacker and member of Chaos Engine, a Matrix terrorist group, to being the Head Security Spider of Ares, one of the big ten corporations]].
* HeKnowsTooMuch: One of the team's field contacts gets executed by Wildcard during the final run due to this. [[spoiler: Ginsen knew he was connected to the team, so him being snatched and mind-read by their mages would spill everything about their plans to them; in turn, this would put them into the unenviable position of playing hardball against a ruthless black ops team and a small army of Amazon mercenaries, both backed by the single meanest Great Dragon on earth.]]

** Two-Times indulging in a moment of EvilGloating about his plans allows 2D to back-hack and engage in a cyberspace duel with him, ending in [[spoiler: Two-Times' death when 2D retargets the KillSat he was aiming at the team to strike Two-Times' Newfoundland lair.]]
** A law enforcement mage hit Geppetto with a Sleep spell, unaware of his deal with Adversary. Unsurprisingly, Adversary promptly slaughtered the mage and the rest of his team in short order [[spoiler: at the cost of nearly killing Geppetto. Again.]]
** As the epilogue reveals, [[spoiler: [[TheParanoiac Vulcan]]]] was eventually killed by his own security measures (specifically, the drop bears got loose and ate him.)

** The team will steal, they'll assassinate, they'll bump off rivals and work with the literal devil. They still have some standards, especially after [[TokenEvilTeammate Geppetto]] retires from the group. [[spoiler: After they're [[WoundedGazelleGambit tricked into]] handing a couple Ares kids to a [[ChildEater Nightmare]], the team agrees to go into the [[EldritchLocation Shadow Metaplanes]] and hunt the bastard down partly to make up for their mistake.]]

* IdentityAmnesia: Dervish wakes up in Seattle with no memories, no clues to his identity, and (almost) nothing but the clothes on his back. A handful of clues are dropped as to his identity, before the last few 'runs and epilogue reveal it in full.

** Taka. He acts like a massive asshole toward them team and repeatedly screws them out of their pay, using them to do his work while threatening to delete the intel they need should they complain at all. The crowning moment of dickery comes where he [[spoiler: almost gets Bend killed because the intel was nearly a decade out of date, prompting the team to screw him over in return]].

* KickThemWhileTheyAreDown: Rosie's team are dead to a member, and she poses no real threat to the team. Geppetto still decides to strip all her happy memories away as a final act of cruelty, rather than outright finishing her off.

* TheLoad: Trout barely contributes anything to the team, refuses to infiltrate (his role in the team) on the grounds of it being "too dangerous", and tries to backstab them at the drop of a hat to get himself out of trouble. And that's without the giant albatross around their collective necks that is [[TheMostWanted his massive bounty]] and Criminal SIN, the latter of which broadcasts his identity and bounty to ''literally every cop within several blocks'' wherever he goes. Unsurprisingly, him being taken out by Lone Star (with some help from 2D) is where the story starts to change its tone and focus.

** 2D and Dervish both react this way when they figure out [[spoiler: they've been geeking an Ares-sponsored running team, while working for an Ares-affiliated Johnson.]]
** The ''entire team'' has a moment of utter terror when they realise they've [[spoiler: been hired by not one, but ''two'' Great Dragons]]. It only mounts as they find out that they're running against [[spoiler: Sirrurg the Destroyer, one of the most vicious Great Dragons on earth, and at least two major megacorporations.]]
* MasterOfIllusion: Bend uses this in a surprisingly creative way: [[spoiler: he entreats another runner group to call it quits and just leave peacefully with their lives. When they shoot his illusionary double, he reconciles himself to having to kill them and breaks his vow of pacifism]].

** Locke, on account of his betrayal and abandonment of Aztechnology, has a massive bounty on his head. By the final run, the company is plastering his face and bounty on every one of their billboards across North America.

* MysteriousPast: Dervish woke up in a dumpster prior to the campaign, [[IdentityAmnesia without a single damn clue who he is or why he ended up there.]] A few hints as to his origins are dropped throughout the campaign, with the [[spoiler: the Shadow Metaplanes run, the last encounter with the second Willy, and the epilogue finally revealing the majority of his past: he was a citizen of the PCC, used as a test subject for years by the fledgling nation due to his unique genetic structure; Aztechnology eventually launched a strike on the facility to claim him and used him as a testbed for their Homegrown Warrior programme, only for Dervish to escape sometime later.]]

* NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow: [[spoiler: An Adversary-possessed Geppetto]] more or less states this during the Universal Omnitech run; since [[spoiler: Geppetto's]] head is currently twisted about 180 degrees in the wrong direction and half his face is missing, [[spoiler: the former's DemonicPossession is basically the only thing keeping him alive]].

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: [[TechnicalPacifist Bend]] actually deciding to kill someone is treated as a major dramatic moment on both occasions it happens -- [[spoiler: in the case of the building-destroying explosion he sets off at the end of the Final Run, [=TwoDee=] reveals he actually bought off the Pacifist trait with karma to emphasise the dramatic nature of the moment.]]

** [[spoiler: Joy, the team's target in the Vegas arc,]] is visibly terrified when the troll guard who crippled him informs him that [[spoiler: his team was unknowingly trying to steal Hestaby's magical focus.]]

* PacifistRun: This is how Bend prefers to operate. It helps that he's basically a magical [[VideoGame/SplinterCell Sam Fisher]].

* PeopleJars: According to Locke, Aztechnology puts the members of its Homegrown Warrior Program into these to install their cyberware. [[spoiler: This is also the origin of the Cyberzombie Willie, who was essentially assembled from several tank-grown organs and body parts.]]

* PutOnABus: Trout gets captured by Knight Errant and flung into prison after the events of the second thread. [[spoiler: [[TheBusCameBack He shows back up]] as part of the prelude to the team's first high-level corporate run, and gets a quick mention in the epilogue as being the test subject of a failed corporate brainwashing program]].

** Brianna [=McReary=] drops a thunderous one when she's given her cut for the Final Run -- [[spoiler: fifty million nuyen's worth of orichalcum.]]

** [[spoiler:2D and Geppetto]] both show up from time to time after leaving the team, with the former having a significant supporting role for the team.

* PrivateMilitaryContractors: Several are encountered by the team over their runs.
** Ares Firewatch: The best of the best, multinational commandos analogous to [[EliteArmy magically-active Navy SEALs]]. Them showing up in a 'run is usually a sign of heavy Ares involvement, hence why Firewatch [[spoiler:escorting a plane containing the kidnappers of an Ares manager's daughter (who the team have been hired to rescue)]] prompts such a massive OhCrap from 2D and the team; they later re-appear during the Final Run to [[spoiler: extract Dervish and convince him to join Ares]].

** Lone Star: The crappy, [[CorruptCop corrupt]] version of Knight Errant, with worse training and equipment. Trout used to be a member of them (along with the Yakuza) before he turned to the Shadows, with the company subsequently hunting him down due to the massive bounty on his head. [[ButtMonkey Captain Joseph Green]] also started out as a member of them, being the one to (semi-directly) take out Trout; he later quit after one too many encounters with the team [[spoiler: only to sign up with Knight Errant.]]

* RealLifeWritesThePlot: Tank's death was the result of this -- his player was forced to drop out of the plot due to family obligations of the "Games are a waste of time, I'm banning you from playing them so you can spend more FAMILY TIME with us" variety, but the GM refused to {{GMPC}} him for the length of the Two-Times Arc and the character was already deeply entrenched in the metaplot, leaving no easy way to [[PutOnABus write him out]].

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: As soon as Dervish gets out of the hospital after [[spoiler: being shot in the head with a sniper rifle]], he decides to get even. [[spoiler: He quickly tracks down the running team responsible and [[BoomHeadshot returns the favour]] to their sniper, before taking out their mages and a couple others. It takes 2D figuring out that they've been geeking another Ares-sponsored running team coupled with [[EliteArmy Firewatch]] showing up in force to make Dervish back down.]]

** Discussed and subverted. [[spoiler: Jordan Formic doesn't want his niece scared off becoming a Shadowrunner; he wants the team to show her the ropes while disabusing her of the notion that it's as glamorous as Shadowrun-Hollywood depicts it to be, so that she can be fast-tracked into the Tir Ghosts when she becomes of age.]]
** Bend more or less pulls this on [[spoiler: Echo]] during the Final Run, on account of her youth (being a teenage Shadowrunner); after [[spoiler: engineering the breakdown and violent destruction of her team, he advises her to go back into legit business -- a hint she's heavily implied to have taken to heart.]]

** After an extraction gone wrong ends up with Geppetto [[spoiler: heavily injured and on the brink of death (again) partway through, and permanently leaking cerebral fluid from his eye, he quits from the team to become a full-time mafia member]].

** After witnessing [[spoiler: one of her teammates go full cyberpsycho and brutally decapitate the other, Echo decides (with some prompting from Bend) to head back to Los Angeles and get the hell out of the Shadowrunning business in favour of her legit music career.]]

* SeriousBusiness: The initiation ritual for the team begins with a member delivering a manifesto on the evils of corporatism and how they must strike back in an act of revolution... by robbing a mid-range family restaurant.

* TheShadowKnows: More accurate to say that the Shadow Metaplane ''itself'' knows. When inside of it, Wildcard looks like a 1920s gangster with a porcelain face, Locke looks like an anthropomorphic Aztec temple, Bend looks like a cross between Sam Fischer and James Bond, and Dervish looks like... [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers Dervish]].

* SignificantNameShift: "[=DeadMan=]" ends up being referred to as Trout by character and narration alike after his second run sees him so badly-injured bu a coked-up troll he winds up flopping around like a dying fish, representative of the team's increasing lack of respect for him and his incompetence.

* SmugSnake: Taka, the team's temporary Fixer during the Tokyo run. The guy repeatedly forces the team to do his dirty work under threat of deleting vital info for their run, all while treating the group like something scraped off his shoe. [[spoiler: This bites him in the ass ''hard'' after bad intel and maltreatment cause Bend to be badly injured on a run against Shiawase, as an enraged 2D and Geppetto proceed to burn down his bar, cripple his operations, and finally leave him for the police to deal with.]]

* SplitPersonality: Dervish's cybernetics and severe brain damage combined to give Dervish a rarely seen split personality. Said personality is a cold, ruthless killer with exceptional sniping skills who still considers himself part of the team. [[spoiler: Dervish specifically triggers this personality entering the Shadow Metaplane because its sociopathic tendencies mean it has fewer emotions to exploit.]]

* SurprisePregnancy: [[spoiler: Jozie informs 2D]] that she's pregnant just before the team embarks on the Lagos run. It's what prompts [[spoiler: 2D, the otherwise enthusiastic Shadowrunner and cyberterrorist,]] to go legit as a corporate security chief.

** A common sign of a Technomancer being badly injured in cyberspace combat. 2D himself starts bleeding from the tear ducts after [[spoiler: Two-Times briefly flatlines him during their battle in an ARES satellite.]]
** [[spoiler: Geppetto]] is left with cerebrospinal fluid permanently leaking out of one eye after a particularly severe instance of FacialHorror and a bit of back-alley surgery.
* TechnicalPacifist: Bend takes up a vow of pacifism, namely that he will not personally kill anyone. He can however enable other people to do the killing on his behalf and is more than ready to apply non-lethal violence personally. [[spoiler: He eventually (though very unwillingly) breaks his vow during the final run.]]

** During the early stages of [[spoiler: the Trout run]], the team finds out there's a rival Shadowrunner team against them. Geppetto's response is to enlist the aid of a Black Lodge cell, who promptly flatline the entire enemy team in ''minutes'' through the use of several ridiculously high-power spells. Highlights include causing their muscle's head to explode like a block of C4, [[PsychicAssistedSuicide forcing the mage to kill himself]], and finally blowing the whole team up with an overclocked Powerball.
** When you just have to be sure, try using enough C4 to remove the entire top floor of a building, as [[spoiler: Bend's actions during the final run can attest to.]]

** Tank showed shades of this earlier on [[note]]like coming out of his house in full combat armour, brandishing a LMG and a Troll-sized combat axe despite being in a peaceful, cop-monitored downtown neighbourhood, or charging back into his house after a run goes catastrophically wrong ''despite'' being warned that it's booby-trapped[[/note]], but the crowning moment of stupid is the time when for some utterly incomprehensible reason, he [[spoiler: signs into a hotel under his actual name and SIN. He does this despite knowing there's a running team and Fixer out there who want his head on a plate, which gets him [[KilledOffForReal geeked by the running team.]]]]

** During the Final Run, the team uncovers a newspaper article featuring Mr. Johnson and a tall, handsome man with silver hair shaking hands -- [[spoiler: with the images of two dragons superimposed behind them, and a simple tagline that drives the team into [[MassOhCrap paroxysms of nervous fear]].]]
---> [[spoiler: '''LOFWYR AND SCHWARTZKOPF MEET TO DISCUSS PHARMACEUTICALS BUYOUT.''']]

---> [[spoiler: “[[TheDreaded Sirrurg the Destroyer]] is running Ginsen.”]]
* WhamShot: During the Ares run, the team manage to track their target (the kidnapper of an Ares official's daughter) down to an airfield where a private plane is waiting to exfiltrate them. A team of Ares Firewatch soldiers, fully armed and armoured up, drop from a unmarked helicopter and breach the hangar where their quarry is... [[spoiler: and then they come right back out, escorting the plane.]]

* ADateWithRosiePalms: Security Director [=McWilliams'=] introduction during the Final Run has him masturbating after the experience of controlling a newly-redesigned Ares drone. Cue an annoyed Bradford Nice ordering him to put his pants back on and listen to his briefing for Ares' part in the Final Run.

* NoKillLikeOverkill:
** During the early stages of [[spoiler: the Trout run]], the team finds out there's a rival Shadowrunner team against them. Geppetto's response is to enlist the aid of a Black Lodge cell, who promptly flatline the entire enemy team in ''minutes'' through the use of several ridiculously high-power spells. (Highlights include causing their muscle's head to explode like a block of C4, [[PsychicAssistedSuicide forcing the mage to kill himself]], and finally blowing the whole team up with an overclocked Powerball.)
** The team gets progressively closer to this tactic as the last mission progresses, [[spoiler: blowing up at least one building when cornered by a group of rival shadowrunners]].

* TerminatorImpersonator: "El Terminador", a full-body combat cyborg sent by Aztechnology to eliminate Locke. It shows up dressed in biker leathers and never stops pursuing them even as its fake skin is blasted off, exposing the metallic monster beneath.

* AdaptationalWimp: [=WildCat=] is downgraded from the Sioux Nation [[EliteArmy special forces]] to a fourth-rate PMC that's barely above the utterly incompetent [=HardCorps=] in terms of prestiege.

** Bend ''hates'' Aztechnology on a visceral, personal level due to the horrible things he saw them do while serving with the Tir Ghosts, with the death of his lover at Aztechnology's hands being a particularly sore point. Needless to say, he considers them his single biggest enemy.

* BlackAndGreyMorality: Roughly the tone of the story, though the earliest runs are more ALighterShadeOfBlack. While the team aren't exactly the most morally morally upstanding of people, their targets are usually various degrees of certifiable asshole (such as Two-Times, [[spoiler: [[ChildEater Mrs. Wellers]], and Alvarez]].)

** As noted by [=TwoDee=], the UCAS has an informal agreement among Shadowrunner teams that means they won't screw each other over for no reason. [[spoiler: The running team out for Tank's head choose to non-fatally incapacitate Geppetto, 2D, and Dervish while executing Tank for this reason; they weren't involved in his feud beyond hiring Tank on. In return, 2D and their hacker later work to cover each other by erasing the killer team from the murder scene's CCTV footage and framing Tank as a criminal intending to do terrible things to 2D.]]

** Knight Errant: The military footsoldiers of Ares, from whom Firewatch recruits. They're the main cop corp in Seattle, and one of the most commonly encountered by the team -- whether as reluctant clients (during the Shadow Metaplanes run) or as enemies.
** Lone Star: Knight Errant's little brother, lacking the training or equipment. Trout used to be a member of them (along with the Yakuza) before he turned to the Shadows, with the company subsequently hunting him down due to the massive bounty on his head. [[ButtMonkey Captain Joseph Green]] also started out as a member of them, being the one to (semi-directly) take out Trout.