Chapter 8
Zed stared at the Renegade's motionless body; he could not believe what he was seeing. The Renegade was taken down! He's down! Mara quickly took action to keep the Renegade's code stable, while Dash took the controls to evade incoming attacks.
"Recognizers! I hate recognizers, why do all of our problems always somehow involve recognizers?! And now, I have to pilot one!" "Dash! Shut up!" Mara yelled. "Our current pursuit isn't our only problem right now!" She lifts her hand and gestures at the Renegade's injured, unconscious body.
Zed spoke up too. "Mara's right, just land this thing so we can get out of this situation. And we need to get 'Tron' out of here, somewhere so his injuries can be properly treated." Link nodded in agreement.
"Okay, okay, *ahem*." Dash leaned into the communications. He giggled slightly. "Recognizer pilot # 13407 requesting permission to land-" "Dash!" Mara yelled. "Okay!" Dash said. "Alright, just take it easy; I'm landing the crap machine."
The recognizer landed roughly, shaking everything, hard. The Renegade groaned, but didn't wake up. "Alright." Bartik said as he picked up the Renegade and slung him over his shoulder. "Let's get the hell out of here, I am not about to become a brainwashed puppet of General Tesler."
Everyone sprinted out of the recognizer, relieved that the chase was over… only to find themselves surrounded. Pavel and Paige stood side by side, obviously neither of them were thrilled with the fact they were working together.
Pavel spoke first. "You are surrounded, put your hands up, and come along willingly." Bartik simply put the Renegade down and he pulled out his disk, Hopper did the same. The other resistors followed their lead. Paige glanced down at the Renegade's crumpled, injured body.
Paige almost felt a pang of pity for him, but she pushed the feelings aside. The Renegade is a wanted criminal, he rains down chaos, and I vowed not to let him get away with it. The soldiers closed the rebels in, blocking any chance of escape. Paige and Pavel drew their disks and approached the surrounded group carefully.
Pavel, not being very smart, attacked first; Mara kicked him out of the way with ease. The rest of the soldiers engaged their opponents, and soon enough, everyone was in a locked fight; not including the Renegade's unconscious figure.
After a few nanocycles of fighting, the Renegade woke up and slowly, tried to get up. Paige saw this happening and strode over to subdue him. He managed to get onto his knees, before Paige grabbed him and pinned him back onto the ground.
The Renegade fought weakly, but his injuries left him very vulnerable. Paige flipped him onto his stomach and put handcuffs on him.
Mara hit Pavel upside the head, knocking him out. Then, she turned to assist her fellow comrades, when she saw Paige leading the Renegade away in handcuffs. Mara punched a black guard that was fighting Zed, and the two ran over to Paige.
Paige saw them coming, she pushed the Renegade aside and disconnected her disk. "Alright, who's first?" She blocked Mara's punch, but was too late before Zed whacked her in the back of the head, knocking her out.
Mara ran over to the Renegade, freed him, and helped him up. "Are you okay?" She asked. "Sure." The Renegade answered. "Never better... saving the injuries, of course." She slung the Renegade's arm over her shoulders and slowly helped him up.
"What do we do now?" Link asked. "Now we get out of here." Beck replied. He pointed a finger towards an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Argon. "I recommend that we head towards that warehouse."
Beck took his arm off Mara's shoulders to see if he could stand on his own; he was slightly unbalanced, but he could walk. He pulled out his light cycle baton. "Come on." He encouraged. "I'll race you there."
Dash pulled out his light bike. "I bet I'll beat you." He shot back. "Dash he's still injured." Mara reminded him. "Oh yeah, I forgot. Hey 'Tron', let's just go easy."
The Renegade shrugged. "Okay, let's just try to get out of here, and fast before history starts to repeat itself." He lifted his hand and gestured at all the unconscious soldiers. "We don't want them to wake up again before we're gone."
Zed pulled out his bike he made for the Argon Race. "Race you Mara." He challenged. Mara just laughed and walked over to the Renegade. "Not a chance Zed, let's just try to stick together."
Mara rezzed her baton and revved her engine. "Ready when you are 'Tron'. The Renegade nodded and took off with Dash, Copper, Link, Bartik, Hopper, Zed, and Mara following close behind.
Then they arrived at the warehouse, everything seemed fine. They derezzed their batons and walked inside. The Renegade sat down, exhausted from all of the events that cycle. Bartik and Hopper decided to go out to keep the Occupation from looking for the Renegade.
Mara walked over to the Renegade and knelt down beside him. She had noticed he had fallen asleep; he looked so quiet and peaceful. Mara carefully reached over the Renegade's shoulder to access his disk. His injuries were pretty bad, so she was going to see what she could do to help him.
She gently disconnected his disk, and held it in her hand. Mara was about to access his medical code, when Zed walked up behind her. "What are you doing?" Zed asked. Mara gasped and dropped the Renegade's disk in surprise.
The disk hit the ground; and instead of showing the Renegade's coding, it pulled up a memory. The memory was shown from the Renegade's eye-perspective. And it showed the Renegade running up a staircase and threw his shoulder into a door, forcing it open.
He jogged a few more steps before stopping at the edge of the rooftop. "You're just as persistent as I remember." A shadowy figure said, it was Cyrus. "I liked it better when I thought you were dead." The Renegade said.
Mara and Zed both glanced at each other with uncertainty. Cyrus smirked as he drew a white disk, activated it, and waved it teasingly into the air. "Did you lose something?" Cyrus teased. The Renegade tried to find a way to the other building's rooftop, but there was no way across. He looked back at the building that Cyrus stood on, but he was gone.
The memory faded into nothing, leaving Zed and Mara speechless.
