Chapter 7: The Sting that Never Fades
Concept's Command Base, Armory, 2300 PectroCycles...
Concept stood at the doorway to his armory, with an Enforcer, fresh from special training, standing next to him. The circular doorway, with eight curved slits, slid outwards and allowed the two programs to step into the room. Small, green-circuited explosives lined the walls, hundreds of them on a single shelf. A long, thin sword lay on a pedestal, next to a wing chute edited to flap with specialized wings. Concept gestured to the weapons of mass destruction before him.
"All of these are at your disposal." Concept explained bluntly and quickly, his crackled voice echoing in the room. "You will be reloaded every mission, but that will not be necessary. Because you only have one mission." The Enforcer pulled off his mask, smirking as he grasped his amor, made in the Scout Enforcer variant, and pulled in on, along with a large hood to appear more menacing. The wing chute came next, and was followed by a sheath for the energy sword, along with a grip for the explosives. "Your objective is to test the Renegade. He is often seen heading towards GridTech Labs. Go there, and fight him, my Hobgoblin. And if he should fail to destroy you..."
The mask emitted two green eyes, slitting along with the maniacal grin underneath.
"... Do not hesitate to strike him down."
GridTech Labs, Lab 9, 0800 PectroCycles...
Heliod opened the door to find Travis pacing across the room, carrying different objects with him every time he came into her line of view. Once he would be carrying a barometric oscillator, the next he would carrying a thin sheet of fiber-optic mesh. All of these were being crafted into a Light Suit posted on a mannequin, outlined with thick, but minimal white circuits.
"Uh, kid?" Travis stopped welding and peeled off his goggles, allowing Heliod to speak. "Can I... ask what you're doing?"
"I'm building an invention you wanted me to build a while ago. Remember how you wanted me to find a way to bend light and sound?" Heliod nodded. "Well, I'm trying to invent a Light Suit that lets off harmonics, and nulls out any harmful noise. I'm trying to make it into just a headphone, but the Light Suit is the prototype at the time."
Heliod gave an approving nod. "And who will wear this suit? Or test it out?"
"That's the problem. I haven't been able to finish it. But I was able to contact the Renegade, and he said he was willing to test it out. Provided I can finish it within a HiloCycle, which shouldn't even take a MylaCycle." Travis tapped a button, and both colors of circuitry changed to a light green, then to a bright red, and finally a soupy light-blue. "Eh, but I'm still trying figure out what these colors would mean." He turned to Heliod and handed her a datapad. "I'll get back to you on it." Heliod smiled and left the lab. Travis sighed with relief. Every time he encountered his boss, he swore she knew he was the Renegade. And when he said that he was developing tech for him, she had nodded in a way that signaled Travis that she knew something he didn't.
A flash lit up on his mobile patrol app. Travis unlocked his phone and opened RPA Unit #21's data feed. A green-circuited, hooded man, carrying a flaming sword and red-circuited explosives, was using a wing chute to fly over the rooftops of Argon's outer city. Towards GridTech. Travis' eyes shot open, forcing him to lock the suit in the Shadow Vault: A door that only Travis could access, allowing him to stash his Renegade gear in it without being caught.
The Renegade suit folded over his civilian wear, and the helmet clicked into place, as an explosion rocked the entire building. "Hold on!" He shouted, rushing towards the blue flames and chaos. "I'm a comin'!"
Three ASF officers dressed in battle-heavy armor surrounded the GridTech Labs staff, as the Goblin-like creature finally burst out of the wall. Heliod turned to one of the men and said, "Mr. Phillip?"
"Don't worry, ma'am," the lead officer calmly spoke, drawing his disk. "We have the most cutting-edge technology at our side. That freak doesn't stand a chance."
The figure ground his teeth, drawing five small knife-like objects. "That's Hobgoblin to you, smarty! And I have the 'cutting-edge' for ya right here!" The blades dug into the officer's armor, causing them to gasp in pain as they derezzed into nothing. Hobgoblin grinned maniacally and turned to Heliod. "As for you, ma'am, let me introduce you to the Hobgoblin diet. Easy way to shave off a few pounds!" As the sword swung, so did a black-and-white figure, pulling Heliod out of the sword's trajectory.
"Not so fast, Hobby," the Renegade said, issuing a punch to Hobgoblin's face. "I don't think it's FDA approved. You might wanna check with them before putting it on the market."
"The Renegade?!" Hobgoblin shouted. Heliod turned and gave a softer voice. "Where did you come from, Tron?!" The Renegade jumped from table to table, only giving a wisecrack response.
"Parked Light Roadster. Punk music. Nine HiloCycles later: it's a boy! A Rene-boy!" Hobgoblin elbowed Travis, with both of them collapsing on the ground.
"Heh. I like you." Hobgoblin croaked. "You're pretty silly. But, sadly, silly won't help you escape this!" A loud, earsplitting laugh pierced Travis' eardrum, as he collapsed on the floor once again. His right lens shattered from the noise, and could only watch as the Hobgoblin raised his sword triumphantly.
Before the sword could land on it's target, a harmonics generated from a co-worker's MP3 player negated the noise. As Travis weakly edged away, he fired an adhesive bomb on Hobgoblin's mouth, and he temporarily ceased to attempt to pull away the glue. Frustration overtook the Hobgoblin's sense of destruction as he fled and took off.
The Renegade winced in pain as he slowly kneeled, and finally stood up, firing a biocable to escape the mess. Heliod's lenses tracked the Renegade until a wall separated the two, and turned around to help her staff recover from the calamity that had come over their lab.
Travis barely managed to clean his wounds and change out of the Renegade suit as Heliod's override key clicked into his lab's door. Heliod worriedly stormed into the lab to find a battered Travis, covered in small scratches, but still injured nonetheless.
"Trav! You alright?! What happened to you?!"
"I got injured in the Hobgoblin attack." Travis groaned as he stood up, the pain stabbing at him from all directions. "I... I've gotta help the Renegade now. I need to finish that suit as fast as I can, otherwise there won't be a Renegade to help." Travis gasped as he collapsed to the floor. Heliod, though blind, could see Travis on the floor with the help of her lenses, and quickly rushed to help him up.
"Kid, you're still hurt. And besides, I don't think Hobgoblin'll be an issue much longer. The suit is almost finished in development. Since you have the schematics, I can have Sajini and Marko finish it for you with their tech." Travis nodded, leaning back into his chair. Heliod smiled contently and rose up from her bent legs. "I'll keep you in check over the new events. In the meanwhile, take some time off at Zek's while GridTech's being repaired."
3 Cycles later, Tribeca, Travis and Zek's apartment, 0700 PectroCycles...
Travis smashed his alarm, yawning as he leaned upward. Most of his wounds had healed, and Sajini and Marko had probably finished the Stealth Suit by now. Once again, everything had changed for the better.
But there was still the exception of Hobgoblin. He was probably still causing trouble across Argon as he thought of it. And his while he caused more trouble, people would wonder where the Renegade was when they needed him, having learned their mistake after the Jet Sentry incident. Zek, however, was still resilient. Constantly rejoicing over the Renegade's absence, Travis felt like he needed to escape. Maybe get an apartment somewhere still in Tribeca, just not here. No... that would be too premature of a stay. For now, stopping the Hobgoblin was a priority.
As Travis leaned up, a flashing light beeped at the edge of the window. Travis slid the window open and a Renegade Patrol Android crawled up his arm. It hummed in a monotone, "Doctor."
"Status, Unit #67?" Travis asked, placing the RPA unit on his nightstand. The RPA unit replied, "Subjects 1, 4 and 6 located, along with one unidentified program." Travis raised an eyebrow, holding both hands up. "Whoa, wait, stop. One unidentified program? Clarify with description."
"Unknown. Constant energy pattern fluctuation allowed program to escape without facial recognition. " The RPA unit apparently knew less than Travis did at this point. "Minimal surveillance obtained by Units 5 and 71. Captured the criminal leaders Code Shark and Rogue with little effort single-handedly." Travis' eyes joined their brows in a raised unison. This program obviously knew what he or she was doing. He had to consider the possibility that she might have been on the Grid longer than he had. And she had also been studying, constantly changing her coding patterns to escape coding recognition. Travis griped to himself, putting on his suit and leaping out the window.
Before leaving, Travis turned towards Unit #67. "I need you to send a Priority S warning to all ASF officers and RPA units. Anybody finds them on the network, send the data feed to my HUD." With that said, Travis leaped out of his window and towards the boonies of Argon.
Lower Argon, just outside Light Rail Terminal B, 1200 PectroCycles...
Travis skulked underneath three Light Rail tracks, as two rolled in and out of the station adjacent to him. Gripping the edge of his bench, Travis snapped the coding off the seat behind him in annoyance. Data feeds streamed through his HUD, none of them giving him any clue to this masked vigilante's identity. As he began to close his eyes, Unit 93's B unit gave a positive reading. Travis smugly grinned behind his mask, having found a single coding string that was locked into her system, no matter what fluctuation it went through. That way, he had a positive lock that at least allowed him to track her, even without a facial recognition.
Travis stood up, stretched, and fired a cable to catch up. She was up at Argon Suspension Bridge, and so was Hobgoblin. This was only asking for a dangerous fight, and Travis had to stop it before any civilian programs got hurt.
Argon Suspension Bridge, 1200 PectroCycles...
Only problem was, the fight had already begun. Explosions were covering the bridge, two figures dancing across the thin stretch of coding. One was slashing an energy sword and throwing spherical explosives at the other figure, who was merely dodging the blasts, and throwing the ones that weren't detonating on a timing back at Hobgoblin, who evaded each blast swiftly and with ease.
Travis' Light Cycle swerved on the coded pavement, as he dropped onto said pavement while his baton slid into his hand. "I've been practicing that trick for Cycles now! Too bad nobody was paying attention. Ah well, can't say I blame 'em. With all the chaos and such." Travis leaped into the air, tackling a civilian out of the way before an explosion could reach them.
Travis reached out, getting onto his knees and touching the citizen. "You alright?!" The Renegade was stunned as a hand met his helmet. A red welt was on the program's hand while Travis gripped his chin.
"Get away from me, you freak!" The citizen shouted, pulling herself from the ground. "She's the one doing all the work! Just leave!" Travis gaped behind his mask, backing away. His teeth ground against each other, in an expression of both physical and emotional pain. As he walked away, an explosion cut his splintered soul back to corporeality. The other vigilante had taken a hit, and was sprawled across the ground: in his stealth suit.
"What's wrong with you?!" The Renegade shouted, helping her back onto her feet. "Did you even bother to toy with your opponent, and try to learn his weaknesses?! Or did you just jump in headfirst and beat up on him?!" The female remained silent, until Travis saw the pattern on her black Light Suit. It reminded him of.. "Is that the Light Suit the kid at GridTech was making me?! I can't believe you stole it from him!"
"Oh, and you can't say you haven't stolen stuff from him?!" Travis' eyes darted back and forth. He hadn't really thought of it that way. He had been taking resources and using them to make his own life as the Renegade easier. But she was somehow doing this better and making his mind shift randomly. She was good. As he regained mental composure, an explosion cut him off. His instincts kicked in, shielding the girl from the blast.
"It's not like that!" He shouted, gripping a fallen bola and snagging it around Hobgoblin and tossing him to the street. "I asked him to make me this stuff! And you... just took it! You're worse than Jet Sentry!"
The girl stood still, as Travis sighed. But as he looked closer, the program was quivering in shame. He swore he saw a single tear slid through the cracks in her helmet. And he knew that he had caused it. "Look... if it makes you feel any better.. a long time ago, my friend was murdered in cold blood by a program. And that's why I took up the fight. But you don't have to steal to do it! And you don't have to risk hundreds of lives to do it! Look around you!" She did, and saw the trail of carnage that was Argon Suspension Bridge. "This was the combination of three villains in a single hero! Codeworm wanted redemption, Jet Sentry wanted to help, and Longshot stole to make her living! If you begin rampaging through Argon to stop this entire mess, you'll end up like Hobgoblin!"
The girl turned and looked away. "If it helps you, I'm willing to team up. But only if you want to. If not, then please. Stop leaving a trail of blood wherever you go." A moment of silence passed over before a loud roar was echoed across the canyon. Hobgoblin grabbed the cord, ripping it apart and charging at the two vigilantes. Just seconds before the sword could make contact, Travis slid his spine backwards, and the girl's fist went into Hobgoblin's face. Hobgoblin collapsed on the ground, moaning in whispering pain.
The Renegade kneeled over Hobgoblin, placing a pair of adhesive cuffs on his opponent's wrists. Travis stood up and held out his hand. "Nice job. I have a good feeling that we'll make a great team. You in?" A MicroCycle passed before her hand slipped into his, shaking it with a truce in mind. The initial hand's owner smiled behind his mask. "That's what I thought." Holding out a set of coordinates, he handed it to the girl. "Meet me at these coordinates. Next Cycles, 2100 Pectros. We'll start teaming up there." As he turned to leave, he came back around almost as quickly. "By the way, um... I never got your name. If you have one."
"Night Streak." Travis raised an eyebrow, but shrugged it off as he rezzed in a Light Jet, and screamed into the night sky.
Next Cycle, Tribeca, Travis and Zek's apartment, 2100 PectroCycles...
Zek yawned as he woke up and rubbed the back of his head. Every Cycle since Miranda derezzed, he had nightmares too horrific to fit in words. He needed a drink, and fast. Maybe that would help. Zek shrugged to himself as he neared Travis' door and knocked. No response. Asleep? No, he would've heard Travis moan that he wasn't hungry.
Noticing something wrong, he pushed the door open to find an empty window, and tossed sheets nearby on the bed. Zek frowned, picking up his phone. He needed to make a call. To Natalie. She was off work, maybe Travis was spending the Cycle at her place. After several Nanos, the answering machine picked up.
"Hi, you've reached Natalie. I can't get to my phone at the MicroCycle, please call back if your call has any significance to me." Zek frowned further, not even bothering to leave a message. Both Travis and Natalie not answering their phones? This was new, and awkwardly strange...
Concept's Command Center, 1 PectroCycle ago...
Concept stared at Hobgoblin, who lay battered and broken before him. The former Enforcer had failed to beat the Renegade a second time, but that would no longer be an issue. He had upgraded Hobgoblin's Sonic Shout, and it was sure to be a real joke. A scream, if you though about it.
"Well, my friend," Concept muttered, watching his lackey groan as he rose from his recharging. "It seems you let me down. The Renegade has learned your weaknesses and plans to exploit them. But I have something different in mind." A button on Concept's wrist lit up, and two platoons of Enforcers marched into six lines of four. "Let's see how our little friend deals with strength in numbers..."
Renegade's Hideout, Present Cycle...
Travis sighed, clicking the RPA time system in annoyance. Night Streak was supposed to be here, but instead, she had ducked out on him. As he had probably guessed.
Travis strode to the ground floor, and exited the warehouse. Applying a new coating of stealth to his incredibly visible Light Suit, Travis nodded in giddy approval. Most of the circuitry remaining from his own changes to the Renegade costume were stripped away here, and what was left was the iconic "T", a few wrist, shoe tip and ankle circuits, and his lenses, all tinted mint-green. Now, he just stuck out like a cloaked man in a small crowd.
Sighing, Travis eventually decided that he couldn't get the best of both worlds, instead just slipping down the rock cliff into the city. He fired a cable and gripped the spire of the Argon Architecture Tower, overlooking the entire city. Yet, despite knowing he could fight inch by inch to Concept, he knew that he probably wouldn't make it.
First off, there was Hobgoblin. Travis knew the materials in Hobby's explosives were alloys made in a subsidiary of Concept's manufacturing plants, so Travis had something to trace him to. Then, there were the villains that Travis had defeated over the past two HiloCycles. Longshot had just vanished off the face of the Grid, and Jet Sentry and Gregor were arrested by ASF. Looking into ASF's security files, however, he found that Concept had paid bail and put them under his own custody. That meant Concept was cooking up something, but the Renegade had no idea what it was.
Before he could mope any longer, an explosion near a warehouse downtown went off. Travis tightened his glare, firing a cable towards the scene.
When he arrived, there were signs of crude repair, and a glimpse of a Light Tank cannon was visible through the back entrance.
"So.. Hobgoblin's trying to give me the secret code. Trap?" He thought to himself for a moment. "Yeah, definitely a trap." As he walked inside, heat surrounded his Light Suit, molten vats of iron spewing from the ceiling. Smoke trailed above him as Travis switched back to his regular Renegade outfit. Hobgoblin cackled as he swung his fists, each one bearing a bomb.
"Welcome to the Hobgoblin's house of horror!" Travis heard Hobgoblin shout over the steam hissing and bubbling of molten iron. "Or should I say.. Refinery of Revulsion! Ah ha ha ha ha!"
"Y'know, Hobby, maybe you should become a marine operator." Travis huffed, swiftly evading every attack Hobgoblin threw at him, literally. "That glider could probably carry a couple nets. Would't hurt to-" Travis was cut off as the ceiling suddenly lit up with yellow. Twenty-four Enforcers descended from the ceiling, and Travis soon found himself surrounded.
"To what, Renegade?!" Hobgoblin cackled as his glider hovered feet above the ground. "To see you turn into a pile of cubes?! Wouldn't that be the day?!" Everybody, minus Hobgoblin, slid towards the safety rail while the support rafters buckled. The molten iron had flowed up high enough that it didn't take long for all but four Enforcers to tumble over into the lava. Travis caught one with a cable, but the remaining nineteen screamed as their bodies shattered from the extreme conditions they so quickly took.
"Next time, Hobby, leave out party favors and snacks." Travis grimaced, flinging his saved Enforcer back onto the railing, and watched as said Enforcer joined his remaining comrades outside the door. "I think your guests will stay longer."
Hobgoblin didn't pay attention, instead uppercutting Travis and tossing him through the roof, only for the Renegade to stand on his knees in pain.
Before another motion could be made, Travis felt his arms grip to the sides of his body, followed by his ankles sealing themselves against each other.
"Well, applause would be nice!" Hobgoblin's maniacal grin diminished into a frown. "I wouldn't try breaking out of those Renegade. The cables are coated with a layer of solid Duratanium. Plus, I can also morph it to jab miniature spikes into your body! So shut up and let's have some fun!" Travis groaned, knowing that Hobgoblin's definition of fun was far different from his own. "Which do you think will break first: My cables, or your body?! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!" The glider drifted into a hollowed-out pipe, with Travis clanging along the sides and trying not to scream.
Hobgoblin sighed in sarcastic defeat. "Well, that taught us nothing! Perhaps a more drastic approach is in order!" Travis began staring at the ground, until the building that he had left shrunk to the size of an ant to his foot. A breeze entered his helmet as the other end of the cable drifted nearby. "Happy landing, Renegade!" Hobgoblin wasn't prepared for this contingency, as Travis pulled on the wing chute cord. But, all that came out was a broken, shattered wing and a few shards of chute coding.
"Well, so much for that one." Travis groaned in defeat. "Here's hoping the ground will stop my fall." As Travis braced himself, another figure grasped him and activated their own wing chute, landing them safely on the ground. Travis ripped through the cords, with the Duratanium coating gone.
"Well, thanks for the save, though unnecessary..." Travis turned around to see a familiar figure next to him. "Night Streak?! Boy, you picked a good time to show up. And I'm going to have to deduct points for your late attendance record."
"Well, I figured you'd need the save." Night Streak folded her arms, and helped the Renegade up. "Guess Hobby decided to play without the burden of rules?"
"Correct guess, first prize, yee-hah," Travis muttered, Night Streak giggling. "I'm guessing he's over... there!" Travis shouted his last word as a bomb went flying into his head. Travis gripped the next one with a cable and flung it into Hobgoblin's glider. The villain gaped in surprise as the cloud of smoke sent him flying into the roof where his two opponents stood waiting for him.
"Give it up, Gobby." The Renegade raised a disk to Hobgoblin's throat, with Night Streak holding a Light Staff aimed at the mask. Hobgoblin grinned, and the glider nearly impaled Night Streak, who swerved to the left and dodged the crowbar wedged into the glider's front.
"Godspeed, Streak!" The Renegade shouted. Hobgoblin took the distraction and used it, tripping up the Renegade and leaping onto the glider, but not before the Renegade fired a cable, ripping off the explosives and energy sword. Night Streak raced after the escaping glider, only to stop and see the Renegade examining the belt containing the sword and grenades, not even bothering to chase after Hobgoblin. "What are you doing, Tron?!" She shouted, pointing towards the small bulb of highly concentrated energy. "Gobby's getting away!"
"Doesn't matter, Streak." Travis said, gripping the belt, drawing the sword and tossing it to his comrade. "Besides, I have a good idea as to where he's going. We just need to find the right time to follow." Night Streak stood there, spending a couple of MicroCycles to try and understand her partner's words. But by the time she finally understood them, the Renegade had vanished, leaving her to get home by herself.
And while she stood there, she found a note stuck to the sword's handle. She read it and smiled from behind her mask brighter than she had in Cycles. 'By the way, you can keep the suit. You earned it.'
Concept's Command Base, Pinnacle, 0010 PectroCycles...
"You what?!" Hobgoblin flinched in total fear, as Concept smashed his glass of energy against the table. The glass shattered, leaving the energy inside it to flow freely across the table. "I give you twenty-four soldiers and the best prototype technology to destroy the Renegade, and now look at the results! Nineteen of my best are dead, and the Renegade managed to get hold of your sword and grenades! What do you have to say for yourself?!"
Hobgoblin sighed, lowering the hood and retracting the mask. "Look, boss, I'm sorry. I messed up, but the Renegade has a groupie. I can't take on two of 'em."
"Then they've left me no choice," Concept growled, putting a data strip with Hobgoblin's physical into a six-outlet slot. The fourth glowed brightly, along with those of Jet Sentry, Longshot, and Gregor. "You're being put in a team under my direct command. Longshot came to me shortly after her encounter with ASF, requesting membership. You know what's going on now." Hobgoblin nodded in mild understanding. "Gregor has built the technology to fight the Renegade, and has given himself a new codename: Rene-Slayer. And with Jet Sentry, nothing's changed." Concept pushed his hands behind his back and smiled. "Only two more pieces to go. Once that is done, the Renegade will want to prevent the day he set foot in Argon."
A/N: A little shorter than usual, but I just didn't have enough time to write a 5,000 word chapter. Still, it looked pretty good when I looked at it. I decided to give Travis a little conflict than usual by introducing Night Streak. Yeah, because this story didn't have any conflict. I hope you enjoyed the chapter regardless. Thanks to PrincessKai317 and DJ Remix for reviewing, and see you all next chapter.
The next chapter, "One Last Cycle", concludes the Sibling Rivalry arc and the chapter afterwards, "Brand New Cycle" , begins the arc titled, "My Own Worst Enemy", detailing Travis' struggles against new opponents and the Superior Six, Concept's new task force.
Next: If everything you knew was coming apart, what would you do... If you only had one last Cycle?!
