Sorry about taking so long to update, but I have been finding a lot of my old material lately. So I decided to start working through it and start posting what chapter I have gotten done so far before I get too deep into this semester's paperwork.

Thanks for the reviews so far, keep them coming.

Well this is enough of me blabbering on,

On with the story...

Magic and Programs Chapter 13

Tia was hunting Grid Bugs in the Outlands with her fellow Programs. Between the heavy combat bodysuit she had rezzed on her body that highlighted the curves of her feminine form, it was the large heavy pointed shield that she carried with her. She put her faith in the shield that would protect her from the Grid Bug's fangs during this hunt. Watching the smallest of their group, Pixel ready her data bow she watched as their hunting party stood ready to pounce on their prey.

For most Programs having Grid Bug wasn't considered something one would eat out of good taste... But given period of time since the dark times of Clu's reign, many programs had fled into the Outlands and had made it their home. Several of the Programs that now lived out here had known of the Isos time out here and even a few had participated in learning from the Isos, when they still existed, how to live off of the land. It was a hard life, but it was theirs.

For the section of the land in which this group of fifty or so Programs lived at. This place was dually important to them. This was one of the locations where the Creator had hid during the early days of the Tyrant's reign. It was also where the programs here had seen first hand the explosion that destroyed the Tyrant and the Creator.

The flood of liquid energy that had erupted from the blast had covered the area in a fairly decent level of nutrients that drew wild programs into this area by the gigabyte that life was practically coming out of every crevice of this sacred land. But it was the Grid Bug that was feeding on a small puddle of energy that would provide much needed sustenance for the group of programs back at the base camp for several millicycles to come.

With a motion of her hand Tia ordered Pixel to fire her bit arrow at the Grid bug's head. As the arrow flew through the air, the elongated form of it flickered for just a moment just before it collided with the head and embedded itself so that it would not derezz the creature's energy. Quickly moving Tia called out: "Move... we have only moments to remove the limbs before it has a chance to reboot."

With that Tia and the other hunters moved in to pin the creature down. Tia's main goal was to keep the body down so it wouldn't be able to move as the others used their disks to chop off the limbs and it's maw so it would be safe to carry back to their camp. As that was taking place Tia started to feel something. Something other than a few cycles ago that could be felt only by a random few programs. Now here in the Outlands, those who had been outside when the blast had occurred were now blessed with a gift of sacred proportions.

As the Grid bug was tied to a sled with Rez Rope, Tia walked away from the group towards the direction of what she was feeling. That was when she saw it and fell to her knees.

"The Users have returned." Tia said in awe as The Beacon glowed bright on the horizon and for once she desired to serve the Users once again.

"Yori... Did the Rez beam pull any Users in during the attack on their side before we lost transmission?" Anon spoke to the elder program as she worked her way through her remote access to the systems she was part of. Meanwhile, Sura and Gibson were doing their best to reestablish contact with SamFlynn and the Users to see if the beam had brought anyone to the Grid.

"I think a few... I can't tell you the total number because the surge corrupted the targeting system." Yori said with concern as she pulled several errant locks of hair behind her ears.

"Can you check to see the number of patterns that were transferred into the system?" Gibson said looking up from his own problem at hand with the communications system.

"I'll check." Yori said as she searched the pattern buffer of the data to see... several large chunks of data on the system. "hold on..." Yori scrolled through the large sections of code before her. "One... Two... Three..." She exhlaed some seeing the last of the stored pattern buffer data come before her. "Four... There are four Users here." With that Anon moved over to see the raw data.

"Do you know where they are?" Anon said with concern.

"I have no idea where Flynn's rez point was at here on the Grid." Yori said with concern. Radia moved over and placed her hand on the elder program who was the Guardian of the beam between the User World and the Grid.

"Maybe... We should check the Beacon... They might be there." Radia said using what little information she had the system Flynn had created.

"Okay." Anon said moving over and started to gather volunteers to head to the Beacon.

"Gibson, you and Sura continue work on reestablishing a link between here and the User World."

"You don't have to tell me twice Anon." The Bostrom Iso said as he moved and flipped open a terminal and started to pull out code elements to see if he could jump-start the connection in some way.

That was when a lone figure walked into the room.

"Flynn's arrival beacon was in Tron City." Everyone turned to see Trace standing in the doorway along with the young Iso Ellie.

"How do you know that?" Anon said moving over to Trace's location.

"Because I served as Flynn's bodyguard before Clu repurposed me into Rinzler." Trace bowed his head in shame.

"Okay, Trace you are on the team that is heading into the city. Jarvis, you double check the logs of where SamFlynn was picked up for the games. From there we can find the Rez Portal from the User World." Anon said realizing now that their search area had changed in a matter of moments from being near the beacon to being right inside of Tron City itself.

"I will do my best in aiding you in finding that location Monitor." Jarvis said bowing his head as he moved out of the room to his stash of records he carried near him.

Jet rolled over from the desk he had slammed into. The very same desk that he had helped Sam move from his father's arcade to ENCOM's IT workshops to salvage data from. Turning around jet turned to see Becky lying on top of the desk. Then seeing Anna helping Gary up off of the floor.

"What the Hell was that?" Gary said looking around the dark room. After a moment Becky was helped down by Jet who was checking out the area noticed several things. The lack of dust and the fact that outside he could hear traffic from vehicles that sounded almost electric.

"I think we were teleported to the Grid." Becky said pointing to the laser in the room.

"Well I was expecting the place to look more Tron-esq." Gary said looking around the room that just looked like any plain basement office in the real world.

"I think we better get out of this room." Becky said remembering her knowledge of what she had seen in Quorra's memories.

"Well if this place is set up the same as its counterpart in the Real World, We just follow the hallway and stairs up." Jet said as the sound of what sounded like a motorcycle outside pulling up. With that the four humans walked out through the double doors to the lab and out towards the hidden door towards the ground level.

Sabi looked around the area that Anon had marked out. Between the number of transports and foot personnel searching for the Users. They had to be cautious due to the fact there were still programs still loyal to Clu about and claiming the life of a User would be a great boost to their cause.

There were stories floating about that during the fight in the User World, that one of their attackers might have been hit by the Rez Beam that connected both worlds together and had been brought to the Grid. The idea of a Dark User, as the EULA called them, being on the Grid frightened her.

Looking down the street Sabi saw the appearance of a several Grid tanks down the block. This moved Sabi to get on her Communications unit and contacted Anon. They needed to bring some forces down to this place to protect the Users or stop the nightmare that may have arrived on the Grid. Either way the their world was in danger of being lost from outside or from within as she saw who they would be facing.

General Tesler was back.

Anon had heard stories of Tesler. One of Clu's more ruthless Generals, very prolific, very dangerous with his schemes. He was the main reason that there were hidden communities lying in the Outlands. It would take time for those programs to feel safe enough to return to any of the cities for anything.

That was when the engines to the lightjet started to burn faster to get them to their destination.

Jarvis had been right about this location. This felt like a place a User would feel safe at. Ellie knew this place felt different. That was when other programs around her started to feel it too.

"Users..." Trace said with almost reference. that was when he removed his disk from his back and joined with the EULA Monitors as they drew their weapons.

"And something else..." Itchy said using his powers to scan the area.

"Yes... I can see the Red." Nel said as she checked her own disk to ready it to use as a shield in close combat. With that they could see the red grid tanks roll down the street.

General Tesler was one of Clu's more ruthless generals. He preferred logic in his seeking of a goal. Clu was limited in his thinking, but broad in his goals. Tesler was the opposite. He was wide in this thinking in seeing all of the angles and variables to an equation and sought to achieve it through a single goal. Tesler viewed the Grid and the Universe as following a set of rules. Even the Isos followed a set of rules on their behavior, that even meant that Users that the Isos emulated so much followed rules as well.

One just had to get through the distractions to view the key answers.

Now with the Beacon ablaze. The clock was ticking.

Tesler knew that according to the stories and the legends that he had been able to piece together that Users were the most weakest when they first appeared on the Grid.

That meant if you needed to slay one, you had to act fast with significant firepower to take them down.

That is why he wasn't taking any chances.

Clu had struck with only a small strike team to attack Flynn. The end result had been several programs Derezzed and an injured Tron who along with an escaped Flynn having starting a resistance movement.

It would take ages for Clu to capture Tron and repurpose him into his loyal enforcer and tracker Rinzler. Tesler had seen the process first hand and was pleased with the results.

With a division of these foot-troops the Grid would have been pacified, controlled… Perfected. But Clu in his short sightedness had only created the one Super Soldier and had kept the formula to make more on his own personal disk.

Tesler would have given five whole divisions for that data.

That was when Tesler saw the programs getting off the lightjet.

"Damn… They brought those new Monitors." Tesler said in disgust. "Programs…" Tesler called out to his men. "We do not let those Pprograms pass. If you see a White Disk… You derezz it!" The order went through the Programs under his command. That was when the front of one of the buildings exploded as a strangely shaped box landed in-between the two groups with one word written across one of its sides…

TRON

Gem watched as she moved down the street as she followed Anon's orders to check out the buildings. If the Users were here then they could be anyplace. That was when her vision of the events to come started to playback in her mind.

There was a tower, Grid Tanks moving about... Gem focused upon the image of the tower. They were near a tall white spired building. With that she walked across the street and started to scan the skyline of where she was at. There was a sign... a Recognizer...

The Home of Space Paranoids!

Gem started to scan tops of buildings again looking for that sign.

Then she found it.

"You have to be joking me." Gem said seeing where the sign was located. The sign was sitting on top of the very structure that she and Anon had taken Refuge in when they had been brought back from deletion.

Quickly rushing down the street, she could see several Grid Tanks moving down the street.

"No... Not now..." her vision was unfolding as she had seen it. Then an explosion knocked her off of her feet. One of the buildings had blown up from the inside.

"Great Becky... give us some warning before you do a Kame Hame Ha." A male voice said as the dust settled. Gem struggled to her feet to see several figures coming through a hole in the wall.

"Sorry, but you said between you and Jet that you couldn't get the door to budge. So after a half hour you stated that you wished you had some explosives to blast this thing open Well I didn't have any explosives, but I did have my powers." the female voice said with the occasional cough.

"Yeah... I did, but I didn't want to be pointblank near you blowing the door off of the hinges." The male voice said back.

"Well it is open!" Gem looked over to see a blond figure in a black jacket and leggings step over the rubble of the improvised monitor offices.

"I think if we didn't get someone's attention with that, they would have to be dead." Another female voice said.

"Great... you shot-put the Tron Machine into the center of the street." Another male voice said coming into the open. There was a moan as several programs moved about in the building.

"Crap... There are people hurt." One of the Females said as Gem moved into the room to see. Anna. "You there..." Anna pointed towards Gem... "Come and help me tend to the injured." Gem moved to aid the Warrior User move an injured program to safety. "Becky... Try not to use your powers again. I don't know if these people want to be smited by a novice with the power of a tactical nuke." That was when Gem turned to see the other User, Becky, look around at the damage she had done.

"Oh, Crap..." Becky fell to her knees in the pixelated wreckage more in shock to the damage she had done. That was when Becky realized that things were about to go from bad to worse. "Anna... We have Red Programs approaching!" Gem turned to see several programs both White and Red heading in their direction.

"We need to get the wounded out of here!" Gem called out as several User Allies made their way into the building to help. Suddenly shots started to be fired as several Clu Loyalists started to race in. One of the Clu followers reached over and grabbed Anna forcing her to her feet before dragging her away. Gem withdrew her disk and with all of her might in her hand crashed the disk right into the head of the Red Program. Anna stood there in shock for a moment seeing the program shatter to the ground.

"If you want to live... Fight! Survive..." Gem reached into her pack and tossed Anna a Baton.

"Wha..." Anna spoke as a another Clu Loyalist came at her. It took just a moment for the Warrior User to get through her head that she was in the middle of a fight. Looking down at the Baton she understood somewhat what to do as she used the unactivated baton as a weapon slamming its broadside into the program's chest before stepping around her disorientated attacker. With a speed Gem had only seen once before during the fight at the End of Line Club by Sam Flynn, the Female User started to fight for her life.

Once behind the program, Anna pulled the disk from her attacker's back and used the disk and baton in a fight style she had never seen before. Using a swift clean move, Anna severed the head of the program to shatter on the ground with his own disk. That was when the other Users realized what was going on and started to pick up remnants of objects from the wreckage and started to fight with them.

"What the Hell is going on here?" Anna spoke as one of the Male Users had picked up a makeshift club and started to smash his way through several Red programs that had surrounded him. Meanwhile the other male user who was much larger and heavier in appearance had taken up a fallen sword and started to used a hand on the blade fight style to defend himself. Meanwhile the the blond Female user had started to dodge her attackers and had started running away to get some distance from her pursuers.

"User..." Gem ducked down avoiding a strike from a foe who was taken down by a shooter on her side. "The remnants of Clu's followers want to see you and your kind derezzed."

"Great... So... In other words the only way that we are going to get out of this is that we have to fight our way out of it." Anna said with a curse. "Remind me to kill the jerk who wrote the files for this level." Anna vented her anger out on a Black Guard.

"You despise the Creator?" Gem said with fear as she dodged an attack towards her.

"Who is the Creator of this area?" Anna said as she shoved the collapsed baton through the chest of another Red Program.

"The Father of SamFlynn." With that Anna had to dodge another assault as a program before she hauled off and kicked the individual away to be hit bay a disk flying through the air.

"Sam's Dad... Great... Just great..." Anna said in disgust. "He just had to set this up like the game-play of God of War Three." With that an explosion occured as the Blond User unleashed her powers on an opponent Grid Tank. Between Anna's warrior skills, the other User possessed powers as told in the tales of Flynn's Disk. If the other two Users could harness their powers the same way, then they might make it through this alive.

That was when the battle changed...

The Blond User had teamed up with one of the EULA Monitors and they were alternating back and forth between one attacking while the other provided a barrier for the other.

Suddenly, the attackers started to fall back. Taking this moment, Anon ordered for their forces to hold the area and move their heavy equipment in to hold the area. Grabbing Anna's hand, Gem pulled her back to safty. Then out of nowhere several mini bit arrows were fired. Anna reacted by shoving Gem down to the ground. Before Gem could protest, a another set of shots rang out with one striking Anna through the shoulder.

The image of red fluid bursting out of Anna's body scared Gem as the User collapsed to the ground. Before Gem could call out for help a Red armored vehicle crashed through the remaining wall of Flynn's sanctuary and several programs rushed out and grabbed the User and herself up and shoved them inside. At that moment Gem knew that the had to do her best to keep the leak from getting worst. Taking her cutting finger, she activated the cutting beam and shoved it into the wound to seal the leak. Anna's scream could be felt running through her as the leak was for the time being temporarily plugged. That was when one of the Clu loyalists shoved her back next to Anna. "Stop what you are doing Program... You are now in the custody of the Clu Warriors." With that Gem held tight onto her pack realizing that its contents would mean either life or death for this User. There were many questions and things that Gem didn't understand, but knew for whatever reason, she needed to find out why Anna was angry at the Creator and once she did, maybe she would be someone that other the programs would connect with.

Becky looked out to see some sort of armored vehicle break through the side of the building and grab two people. It took her a moment to realize that one of the people grabbed was Anna. That was when another vehicle aimed a turret basted gun at them and started firing. The Program fighting alongside her that had a head of orange hair had projected some sort of shield in front of her as the two of them hit the ground. The speed of which they hit the ground to avoid the shots as the semi-transparent screen shattered like large pieces of glass made them flench as debris started to fall on top of them. Before anyone could act, the armored vehicle backed out and sped off. It felt like the fisr time that she had gone with Dave and had run right into Hovath. The sheer feeling of evil that she sensed coming from one of those tanks made her feel ill.

Using what she knew of Magic, Becky pulled the program with the sheild ability up and ran behind an armored truck before her limited magical skills in this land to cast a locate spell on Anna. Casting the locate spell on the clouds in the sky would atleast them keep track of Anna so that they could find her later and mount a rescue. That was when the Red lit soldiers started to fall back and retreat from the area.

Becky knew that for every hour that passed here that a minute passed in the real world, so the sooner that they were able to rescue Anna, the sooner they could get to the portal and get home. Becky prayed that Dave was going to keep it together during those seven plus minutes she was trapped in here ad she watched the Red soldiers pull out from the battle that just had taken place.

Becky hoped that Anna could keep it together as a rescue could be planned to get her back and home.

TBC

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