Run for the Skyline

Science Fiction Contest80 stories ·150 members

Lives are controlled. Communication is monitored. Anything deemed improper is censored. If you want to send messages in private, you need to do it physically, with couriers known as Runners.

Rainbow Dash is a Runner. It's not the greatest job, but it's for a good cause.

The government is hunting Runners. If they think you're carrying information they don't want you carrying, they'll come after you with everything they've got. They have nigh-limitless resources at their disposal: enforcers, vehicles, surveillance. Your life will be on the line until you submit. They will find you and they will hunt you down, and your only defense will be your wits and your ability to run.

Now it's the greatest job.

An experiment in atmosphere, entered in the Science Fiction Contest II because it inspired me to finish it. A thematic crossover with Mirror's Edge; no non-pony knowledge required.

Chapters (1)

Comments ( 11 )

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hawthornbunny

hawthornbunny #1 · Mar 19th, 2023 · 10 · ·

I have long had a fantasy of a ponified Mirror's Edge so I couldn't resist delving into this, but I got way more than I was expecting. This is beautifully done. It manages to bring the dystopian city to life much more vividly than the game was able to. The choice of present tense is perfect for a story where we're constantly on the edge, and having Rainbow treat the whole thing like a game is a great way to mesh game logic with the narrative. I love how you even used necessary contrivances like the flight suppressors to give such a magnificent payoff at the end. Fantastic stuff. :) Wishing you luck in the contest.

NorrisThePony

NorrisThePony #2 · Mar 20th, 2023 · 6 · ·

Exhilarating. It can be challenging making a story fundamentally one extensive action sequence, but this was consistently really thrilling, while casually sharing juuuuust enough details about the setting to keep it creatively engaging as well.

I've never played Mirror's Edge but this really makes me wanna check it out

Odd_Sarge

Odd_Sarge #3 · Mar 20th, 2023 · 4 · ·

Adrenaline.

Captivating as all hell. Pacing is ridiculously well-done for tackling the style of Mirror’s Edge (which in itself is definitely worth noting!) while also getting really conceptual in so many tight ways. I especially adored the tutelary section. There are just so many great ideas hinted and worked into this, and it is all so satisfying. Great run from Rainbow, and even greater sights from you: seriously, fantastic work with the world-building; it was all so natural in spite of the absolute adrenaline that this fic is. You are excellent at getting the heart going fast.

Moonatik

Moonatik #4 · Mar 20th, 2023 · · ·

NEW RAMBLING WRITER STORY LETS GOOO

RushingWind-01

RushingWind-01 #5 · Mar 20th, 2023 · 1 · ·

I never played Mirror's Edge, so all of it looks new to me. But that was sure a cool story. I wonder what Dashie and Applejack were carrying. A message for Fluttershy?

I do know the song "Warning Call", which is featured in the second game, Catalyst, and I absolutely love it like many of the songs from CHVRCHES.

This gets a fave. Good job!

Zubric

Zubric #6 · Apr 3rd, 2023 · · ·

Cool I loved every moment of it

Bugsydor

Bugsydor #7 · Apr 14th, 2023 · · ·

I especially loved the bit with the Tutelary being responsible for Runner Vision.

You captured the feel of the game pretty well, too.

Bicyclette

Bicyclette #8 · May 29th, 2023 · 1 · ·

Metal groans as Rainbow swings herself around another landing and rolls her eyes. “Final” is a bit much; “second” would be more accurate. But “final” looks better on the transcripts. It lets the Blues pretend they aren’t hyperaggressive thugs.

oof, too true to life

Her hooves don’t fall quite as surely as usual. Of course they don’t; stairs are too jagged. It’s not like slopes, where you just need to reorient yourself a little and you can run. Another reason Rainbow doesn’t like stairs. But she needs to go up, and these stairs go up, so stairs it is.

stairs do seem far less suited for ponies than they are for humans

What’s that? Ponies like colors? Eh, just slap some orange on there and they’ll be fine. Just orange, though; can’t spend a hundred bits on a few more buckets of different-colored paint when that money could go to another gold-plated airship! But that’s high-castes for you. They’d leach the green from the plants and the blue from the sky if it made them money.

so true, also a great commentary on modern design trends

When you need privacy, you need privacy. Rainbow and the other Runners help safeguard that privacy. The fact that the horseshoenet gives her an excuse to live on the adrenaline-inducing razor edge between gloss and reality, in perpetuity, is pretty neat, too.

hehe, the horseshoenet! and yes, it is indeed a very useful excuse for Rainbow Dash

Some days, it’s all she can live for in this cage of gilded rot.

ooh, cyberpunk af

Rainbow doesn’t leave just yet. She finds the nearest camera (not hard) and begins making faces at it. The more attention she draws to herself, the less attention Applejack will have. If she’s offensive enough, the Blues won’t even notice she doesn’t have the bag anymore. And, in its own way, being childish like this is supremely offensive: You’re not good enough for my REAL insults. At least, that’s what Rainbow tells herself. It attracts the Blues all the same, though.

hehe, Rainbow is very well-suited to this as well!

Attention: drawn so exquisitely you could sell it as art and make a killing. She must’ve really ruffled some feathers. Next order of business: escape. She loves this part. No target, no conditions, no limits. Just go fast and get the Blues off her tail. And go fast is her special talent.

aww, love this for Rainbow

They’re right, technically. There are no other doorways off the balcony and no safe roofs to run on.
Rainbow never believes any sentence that contains the word “technically”.

so true

It’s not a theory unique to her, not even confined to the Runners; it’s appeared in prominent journals of arcane theory, the thick ones Rainbow uses to keep her table from wobbling. But the government claims that genii locorum have been well and truly disproved.

ooh, a very neat idea! and an in-universe justification for all of these thrilling action sequences

Maglevs are fast. Very fast. Perhaps too fast, given the winds they produce in their wake. But time is money, rich folk want to save money, and so they save time by having the maglevs be perhaps too fast.

must be quite fast for even this Rainbow Dash-inflected narration to be saying this

So she opens her wings, detaches her maghook, and outpaces the fastest thing in the City.

and what a flex!

i was really in awe at just how well-paced this entire long action chase sequence of a story was! i’m someone who gets easily lost in long action sequences, so that is really saying something. well done!

FOXTrot2

FOXTrot2 #9 · Dec 10th, 2023 · 1 · ·

You're alive, Rainbow Dash ~

Uz Naimat

Uz Naimat #10 · February 21st · · ·

Adrenaline is one hell of a drug.

Love this. I have no clue what Mirrorʼs Edge actually is, but that didnʼt hinder my ability to enjoy the story. Iʼm in love with the dystopia universe you've created here.

And also Dash is the best. She proves sheʼs just as awesome on the ground as she is in the air.

Into Best of Alternate Universe this goes!

blitzlego