Whoo-hoo! Finally got chapter 3 up and running! Sorry for the wait, guys, but I'm trying to get all my stuff for college strait and fighting with the lady at the Financial Aid Dept. Anyway, here's the next chapter hope you guys like it.

Legal Blabbity-Blah: I don't own Mirror's Edge. If I did, it probably wouldn't be as good as it is. All original characters and content (including the story itself) are owned by me and cannot be used without permission from me, so if you want to use it, just ask me first!

Activity from his clients had been light since the police took up their streak of violence against runners. No one wanted to risk losing any of these elite couriers. So, with noting to do, Fox made his way to the runners' training grounds. Before he got too close, he looked around to make sure there were no blues or City Eye news choppers around watching him. Those damn newsies had a tendency to tip off the cops when they spotted a runner. When he felt that it was safe, he floated over the gap between the building he was standing on and the next, entering the runners' training grounds. In actuality, there were no official training grounds; it was merely a term used to describe and area that contained all different aspects of the city rooftops and their features.

Fox glanced around and noticed he wasn't alone. He spotted several other runners who had come to the training grounds to hone their skills. Without hesitation, he joined them. He bolted across the rooftop and vaulted over a fence. Continuing his run, he slid under a pipeline and leapt from the nearby ledge, rolling upon his landing on the next rooftop. Fox sprinted off, vaulting a small AC unit and leaping out onto a narrow pipe stretching across the gap between rooftops. He balanced his way across and stopped for a moment to survey his surroundings. Straight ahead of him, a fence loomed up with an ominous string of barbed wire running along its length. To his right was the wall of the building and to his left was a sort of make-shift ramp made from sturdy plywood and weighted down at one end with cinderblocks and bricks. These were common across the rooftops of the city and had been installed by the runners to aid in their ledge-hopping.

Fox backed up against the building's wall and bent down into a track start stance. After taking a gulp of air, he ran as fast as he could at the ramp. He dashed out onto it and leapt off, the ramp protesting slightly over the extra weight. He planted both feet into to brickwork of the next building and stood straight, letting the light from the sun warm his face. Ah, this is the life! He smiled and took a deep breath of the afternoon air. Several of the other runners had stopped to applaud at Fox's performance. He waved at them from where he was standing. Suddenly, his earpiece buzzed to life.

"Fox," Merc's frantic voice sounded over the comm. piece, "Faith fell; you need to get to her like, five minutes ago!"

"What," Fox practically screamed into his comm., "you're kidding, right?"

"No. Faith. Fell. Move your ass southeast, now!" Fox dashed off like a bat out of hell in the direction Merc had mentioned. He knew Merc sounded like an asshole right now, but he also knew why. In her present state, Faith was a sitting duck if any of the CPF happened by. What's worse, she was sitting on the ground, so it would be relatively easy for the blues to spot her. Fox wasted no time in clearing a quarter of a mile of cityscape before Merc's voiced fizzled in.

"Okay, she's about six blocks from you, just keep running straight. And be careful kid," he said, "I know you want to get to her, but don't be in so much of a hurry that you go and fall, too." Fox didn't reply; he wanted to save his breath for the trip back carrying Faith. It took him about five minutes to clear the remaining distance between him and his friend. He slowed to a stop on the edge of the rooftop and looked frantically around to try and spot her. He glanced down a nearby alleyway and managed to spot her. She had done a good job of pulling a nearby piece of cardboard over her so she was at least partially hidden from any prying eyes. He crossed a small gap between rooftops and scrambled down the building's fire escape. As soon as his feet hit the concrete, he dashed over to her.

"Faith," he said in a loud whisper, "Faith, are you okay?" The only reply he got was a groggy, pain-filled groan. Without a minute of hesitation, he lifted her up onto his back and headed back up the fire escape. Faith was apparently coherent enough to realize to wrap her arms around Fox's neck so he could use his own arms to climb. When he reached the top of the building, he paused.

"Hey Merc," he said, "can you find me a way to get back to your place without many large gaps or big climbs? I don't know how much I'll be able to do carrying Faith."

"Yeah," came a reply after a few seconds, "give me just a sec to pull up some maps here."

............

Upon his arrival at Merc's place, Fox found the man already waiting for them with a med kit close by. Fox walked over and set Faith down on the couch. He stepped back and let Merc examine the woman. After a few tense moments, Merc spoke up.

"Thankfully it's not too bad," he said with evident relief in his voice, "just some broken bones and a few scrapes and bruises. She will be out of commission for a while, though. Can you pick up any jobs her clients want done until she gets all healed up?" Fox nodded and breathed his own sigh of relief.

"Hey Merc," he said tentatively, "how close were we?"

"A few minutes," the man said frowning, "just a few minutes. Blues didn't know she was there; they were answering a call downtown. If she had still been there, though, I doubt there would've been a happy ending." Fox just stood there for a few seconds with a scowl on his face before cursing and moving to the hole in the roof of Merc's place.

"Merc," he said angrily, "what the hell happened to this city?"

"I don't know kid," Merc replied as Fox lifted himself out of Merc's place, "I just don't know…"

............

Fox sat on the ledge of a skyscraper and looked out over the white expanse of the city. He hated it; every single inch of snow-white city dotted with oranges, blues, and greens. He wished he could go back to the time when he didn't hate it. He wasn't very old at the time, so he didn't remember much. The government never meddled in things that didn't concern them; people were free to make phone calls without being monitored and traced. Then, Callaghan got elected and the changes came. They came slowly, but still all too fast for some. Soon, there were security cameras everywhere and you couldn't make a phone call without some government suits somewhere knowing about it and listening to every word you said. Say the wrong thing, and blues showed up at your apartment and hauled you off to stand trial. There had been some that had resisted, both peacefully and violently. The word "November" had been all but blacklisted since that time of change.

The government claimed that the changes were for the good of the people, but some of the people didn't agree. One of the peaceful protests outside the Shard had turned into a riot, and several innocent protesters had been caught in the crossfire, including Fox's parents. He actually remembered seeing Faith there with another small girl. She had told him before that her parents had also been killed in the November Riots, so it wasn't very hard for the two of them to become quick friends. He had helped her break into Merc's place, then accepted Merc's offer to be trained in parkour and become a runner. And here he was a few years later, fighting the government that had taken his parents from him. Merc and Faith had become like siblings to him, and he wanted to do everything he could to protect them, especially Faith. His thoughts were interrupted by his comm. piece buzzing.

"Hey kid," Merc's voice came through, "it's getting dark, time to come back."

"Yeah, yeah," Fox said after a second, "I'm coming." He stood up, stretched his legs and arms, and took off toward Merc's lair.

Okay, I wasn't planning to do a prolouge of any kind, but I needed to do some "in-game research" to make sure that I get all my facts straight and progress my story the same way that the game did, so this is sort of a "buy-time-to-do-research" chapter. Also, I did use it to describe Fox's backhistory and to describe some of the game's as well. I also noticed a few discrepancies in my first chapter: the city's police force is abbreviated CPF not CPD (as I said in chapter 1); the pursuit cops weren't included in-game until later. Sorry for the little mix-up; I hope it doesn't ruin the story for anyone.

I've already started typing chapter 4, so the next update shouldn't be too far away. Also, check out my other stories and look for upcoming stories for Code Geass, Bully, Code Lyoko, and Total Drama Island!

See ya'll next time!

La lune du sang