My stories, a look back - #7: Friendly Fire

This one is the first M-rated fic that I wrote, and also the only crossover that I've written, for an old game that you wouldn't really expect to mesh very well with MLP. Given that it's also an extension to someone else's story that I'm pretty sure nobody would have read either, I'm pretty sure almost none of my followers have read this one.

I'm a huge fan of the Unreal Tournament games, and one day out of curiosity I searched to see if anyone had written UT with ponies. Sure enough, I found one: An "Unreal" Day, by Brian Jacko. I read it and I quite liked it. While the writing and characterization is pretty clunky, it felt similar to what I might write if I was trying to cross over My Little Pony with a first-person shooter death tournament, right down to the details of how the game mechanics are realized in MLP's magical setting.

Brian Jacko had managed the rather strange feat of combining the competitive brutality and gore of Unreal Tournament with the friendly, whimsical nature of MLP - it really is a bloodsport with ponies and friendship, as strange as that sounds. The original fic establishes the use of magical necklaces which enforce the game mechanics and ensure that, despite all the gore, nopony can really be harmed, which gives the fic an out for just going nuts with over-the-top slapstick violence.

Friendly Fire, then, is a spiritual sequel to An "Unreal" Day. (I'm not sure why I didn't call it a direct sequel, since it does reference and have continuity with that fic). I think I had already toyed with the idea of ponies playing UT myself, but with the foundations provided by Brian Jacko's fic, I found it much easier to make that happen, and this was the result. At the same time, it was also something of a homage to the game and to Brian Jacko's fic.

The majority of this fic was actually written 2 years before it was published, but I sat on it for quite a while before deciding to finish it off and put it out. I do remember that again, like Blitzing Brows, the title came last. Also it's another alliteration - I don't think I ever consciously intended these alliterative titles, but they just sounded good.

Like with Manehattan Moo, this fic is just ponies playing a game, so I won't do a blow-by-blow recap but will add some general impressions.

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Friendly Fire
The Mane Six play a game of Unreal Tournament.
August 2016
Gore, Crossover

The fic opens with Rainbow Dash talking to her teammates, Rarity and Fluttershy, and it is quickly established that they are playing Capture the Flag. UT fans should recognize the map that they are playing on, as it's the most iconic CTF map in the series - Facing Worlds, a map consisting of two tall castles at opposite ends of a floating island. I deliberately didn't identify the map to leave that a bonus for anyone who recognizes it.

The other team are Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie, and the conflict of the story quickly becomes apparent - Dash's team are losing and need to do something fast to turn the game around. Dash believes she's spotted an opportunity that might take them to victory if they act fast - unfortunately, they don't realize that they're playing right into Twilight's hooves, as she has prepared a cunning plan to secure victory. Twilight's plan involves using Pinkie, the best player in the tournament, for a risky venture that only Pinkie has any chance of pulling off, while simultaneously taking out Rarity, the cornerstone of the other team's defence.

The fic establishes early on that all of the ponies are veterans of the game by now, and are comfortable with its mechanics (except maybe Fluttershy, who spends a lot of this fic being of little use). Their skills and weapon proficiencies were previously established in An "Unreal" Day, and mostly carry over to this fic:

* Rarity is cited as "the best sniper in the league" - the original established that the Sniper Rifle is her weapon of choice as it allows her to get clean kills without having to get covered in blood.
* Rainbow Dash's favored weapon was the Rocket Launcher due to its power and versatility - it hits hard and has many different modes of operation, such that a skilled player can use it very effectively indeed. In this fic, she is leading the Red Team in the Capture the Flag game.
* Pinkie was the all-time tournament champion thanks to her mobility, unpredictability, and innate sense for danger. Her favorite weapon was the Ripper, a truly horrid weapon that flings razor discs capable of taking a pony's head off. She puts it to good use in this fic.
* Twilight was mentioned in the original as being somewhat of a tactician, preferring the Shock Rifle for its ability to displace and trap opponents. Hence, she's the Blue Team leader and is the one orchestrating the plan that eventually takes down Rainbow's Red Team.
* Applejack's favored weapon in the original was the Flak Cannon, essentially a massive shotgun - however, there is no Flak Cannon on the Facing Worlds map. She does, however, get to wield the Redeemer, a superweapon which fires a single nuclear missile that obliterates every player in a massive radius.
* Fluttershy's favored weapon was the Bio-Rifle, a difficult and tactical weapon that shoots globs of toxic goo, which can be used to deny mobility to opponents or just straight up annihilate them if you hit them with a particularly big glob. However, there is no Bio-Rifle on the Facing Worlds map, so she's somewhat ineffective in this battle.

The fic uses a lot of dramatic license to tell the story - the action is noticeably slower than it would be in a real game of UT, as characters spend a lot of time delivering dialogue. However, I think this actually makes the action feel a lot more realistic than the video game - the ponies are physically present in the map and are constrained by the limits of their bodies, so it's not unreasonable that they have time to discuss and chat while playing the game.

After the Capture the Flag game is over, the fic immediately moves into what I called a "Bonus Chapter", as it doesn't really relate to the main battle but provides more story for anyone who wanted more. In the bonus chapter, Dash and Pinkie play a game of "Snowdropmatch", a gametype in which players are completely blind, and must hunt each other by sound alone.

As far as I know, there is no such real gametype like this - this is something I made up. It would make for a poor video game, but I felt it was perfect for this scenario - it's introduced as a gametype that allows visually-impaired ponies like Derpy to play on an equal footing with others. (There is a real gametype called "Darkmatch" which is similar, but that one just turns all the lights off and gives every player a flashlight).

Continuing the homage, the bonus match takes pace on another iconic Unreal Tournament map - Deck 16, a small enclosed level featuring a very large pool of acid which results in swift death for anyone who falls (or is knocked) in.

Trivia

* This story also features what I guess could be considered my first attempt at custom cover art - it's a mockup of the sniper rifle scope overlay from the original Unreal Tournament, on top of a screenshot of Rainbow Dash. As a joke, the zoom indicator shows X20%, because it's Rainbow Dash.
* The scene where Rainbow is giving a pep talk to highlight her team's abilities is quite reminiscent of a bit in one of the Harry Potter books where Oliver Wood (the Gryffindor Quidditch captain) is doing the same. This wasn't an intentional shout-out, but the sentiment was so similar that it felt appropriate.
* I mentioned previously that I tend not to like flashbacks due to how they disrupt story pacing, and how they can waste the reader's time if handled poorly. However, the bonus chapter has what I consider to be a flashback done well. It tells the story of how Derpy came to be the game announcer, which forms a nice bridge between this story and the original, and it doesn't really interrupt the flow of the story because there's not much going on in the match anyway; Pinkie is specifically choosing to put her game on hold to listen to Derpy's story. It also nicely pays homage to the original by having Princess Luna, the original announcer, pass her torch to Derpy.
* Derpy's flashback takes place on yet another real UT map, this time LavaGiant, although the fic doesn't go into much detail on it.
* In the Snowdropmatch, Pinkie says "Hi Derpy!" before Derpy has announced her presence, even though she's blind and shouldn't know that Derpy is in front of her. This was a subtle hint to Pinkie's ridiculous level of sensitivity.
* I remember in the original draft, there was a bit where Derpy tries drinking the acid from the pool, since she's an admin and therefore immune to harm, and she wanted to see what it tasted like. Presumably I cut it because it doesn't really add anything to the story.
* No, Pinkie does not get a point for Dash falling in the acid pool. (That's a self-frag and counts as a negative point against Dash's score).

Good stuff

* I broadly like the opening on this one. It starts out very casually, with Dash and Rarity just chatting about the current situation, quickly setting the scene and letting the reader know what the stakes are and where everyone is.
* I also like the idea that Twilight holds strategy meetings in the middle of battle, because it's something Twilight would do. This becomes plot-relevant when Twilight actually uses this to wrongfoot the other team - she predicts that Dash will try to catch them off guard in a meeting, and deploys Applejack to intercept them. With a nuclear missile.
* RAINBOW: "I'll throw everything I've got at Pinkie, but I don't expect to survive." - Rainbow Dash clearly respects and fears Pinkie's ability, and factors it into her planning. I liked this detail, as it shows that Rainbow isn't just a hothead - she knows exactly how dangerous Pinkie is in this game.
* As Rainbow says, the Redeemer is not a close-combat weapon and using it in the suicidal manner that Applejack did is a little unorthodox. This is supposed to be a hint that something is not as it seems - that Twilight has come up with a rather different plan than anypony was expecting.
* I liked the way the team balance worked out. Twilight has Pinkie on her side, who, as mentioned, is an absolute powerhouse - however, Rainbow has Rarity, the most experienced sniper in the league. This effectively balances out, as Rarity can prevent the worst of Pinkie's excesses by taking her out from a distance. That's why Twilight's plan hinges specifically on taking down Rarity - without their long-range support, even Rainbow and Fluttershy together aren't enough to stop Pinkie.
* I quite like the suggestion in the bonus chapter that ponies tend to play Snowdropmatch as something more informal and friendly and just have a good time, instead of the technical challenge that Dash wants it to be. It felt like quite a genuine and relatable notion, and also made the conflict more about Dash and Pinkie's attitude to the game, rather than the battle itself.

Bad stuff

* Although I like the opening, I confess that it starts off a bit clunky - it dumps a lot of visual description on the reader that isn't really relevant for anything other than establishing the physical appearance of the map, which won't be of much interest to anyone who isn't already familiar with it.
* The fic frequently spells out details in gratuitous depth, which can make it come across as a bit overbearing, like the author doesn't trust the reader to figure out details on their own. This was mostly intentional, as that is the style established by Brian Jacko in the original.
* Fluttershy is written as incredibly weak-willed in this fic, even more so than she was in the original. It's partly justified by the fact that Fluttershy is not as keen on the bloodsport as everypony else, and hates being shot at/dismembered/decapitated/explosively decompressed. But really it's mostly to create drama and conflict on Rainbow's side.