Discovery

"Veridis Quo"

By BlackMarketTrombones

A/N: You can listen to "Veridis Quo" on this one if you want. It doesn't add anything, but it's not distracting and is a great song.

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Staying still seemed to be the best for Sync—he soon recovered from the shock of his injury enough to speak coherently. Physically, however, he was still getting worse. The ragged edges of his wound were deteriorating at a slow but constant pace, and both of them were at a loss for what to do.

"It's your turn to come up with the plan, remember?" Sync joked.

Syntax smiled weakly. "That's not the deal."

A brief silence, then Sync sighed. "Syntax... If— Well, if I—"

"Don't," Syntax said sharply. "Just— You'll make it. We'll...think of something. We always do."

"Yeah." Sync smiled fondly, but his eyes were sad. "Just... Don't think it was your fault."

"Course not," he said, the forced lightheartedness in his voice belying his stricken expression. "You'll notice I didn't get fragged by a grid bug."

"I'm still running! You call that fragged?"

Syntax raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Can you walk under your own power?" Sync looked a bit sheepish. "Then you're fragged. We just have to figure out how to make you...not fragged."

"You're very eloquent this millicycle."

Syntax snorted. "We're in the Outlands. I'll save my pretty words for when we're back in front of an audience. And we will be," he said sternly, seeing Sync about to speak up. "Clu can't last forever, not if he keeps snatching up programs. Someone will notice. Someone has noticed. It's...just a matter of time before we can go back to the city. Maybe we'll even get a parade—we saved that resistance, didn't we? And all those Isos. Survived Clu and Rinzler and Flynn only knows how many soldiers; we're pretty hot stuff."

"...Right." Sync was starting to look sickly again. "And you can dazzle the adoring masses with your innovative performing style."

"It's your ideas that do it," Syntax continued, mulishly ignoring Sync's obvious and growing pallor. "Couldn't do it without you. We're a team, and the best, and...and..." His face fell, forlorn. "What'll— What would I do without you?"

Sync smiled, affectionate and sad. "You'll figure something out."

Syntax looked stricken, but tried to hide it behind his own grin. "We had some good times."

"The best."

"Got up to some pretty wild stuff."

"Smuggling Isos was my favorite."

"I liked that time we switched Castor's cocktail with Bacn."

Sync's bark of laughter turned into a cough. "Yeah... Syntax?"

"Hmm?"

"Take care of yourself." He smiled. "And thanks for the ride."

Syntax looked crestfallen. "Right back at ya."

And then there was the sound of an explosion from behind them.

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A/N: This killed me.

There is no Latin word "veridis" that I know of or could find, but there is a "veritis." Since Latin was primarily a spoken language and /t/ is a lot like /d/ (and "veridis quo" mixed up makes "Disquoveri" but "veritis quo" doesn't), I decided to just go with "veritis," which is the plural dative and ablative forms of "veritus, verita, veritum," an adjective meaning "respected and revered" or "dreaded and feared." Then there's "quo," which is the singular ablative of "qui" and "quod" (yes, I know it doesn't match "veritis" in case or number—I'm kind of grasping at straws here), adjectives and relative pronouns meaning "who, what, that, or which."

So the (very) rough translation I'm going with is "who or that which is respected or feared." So you have Syntax, who clearly respects Sync as his friend and partner and is currently fearful for his life.

:D

SuperMoose thinks this makes me a nerd. I'm writing Tron fanfiction; I think my nerdhood is pretty well-established.