21: Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall
Beck grimaced as his head slammed into the wall. The Renegade imposter, 45, was gaining the upper hand. It was only a matter of time before either he or Prototype 45 was eliminated from the fight. And at this rate, it looked like he would be the one removed. He used a forceful kick, and the Renegade imposter pushed it back with delicate ease.
Every kick he made, 45 blocked. Every punch he threw, 45 gracefully avoided. It was like he was actually fighting himself. And it was probably true
"Users... How much do you know about me?..." Delta gasped, as his Light Sword baton lost it's grip from his hand. "It's like I'm fighting... well, me."
"I know more about you than you would think," 45 hissed, unmasking himself to reveal his eyes to be pitch black, "Your fighting style, your strategies, your targets, and most important... the ones you care about. Paige, Zed, Mara, Able, Tron. And it's all thanks to Occupation computers."
"Stop!" Beck shouted, pulling out a Light Grenade and pulling the auto timer. The explosion knocked the two apart, Beck chocked, coughing out shards of code, parts of his helmet smashed to pieces. His right eye, mouth, and splinters of hair were revealed through large cracks in his mask.
"You won't go near them!" Beck shouted, drawing his disk and lunging at Prototype 45, "You will not hurt them! YOU WON'T TOUCH THEM!" Beck roared in rage, putting all of his possible strength into every blow he threw. 45 grunted, taking the hits, but still holding ground firmly.
"But I'm you," 45 cackled, showing a long, hissing tone in an equally long tongue, "You can't defeat a program in every way-"
"You're right," a female voice rang throughout the generator and lab. Green circuits shone over Paige's body, her ID disk glowing just as brightly. "But you're not me. You can't beat me and him at the same time."
"Maybe," 45 growled, turning into Paige, and speaking in her tone instead, "But there's nothing stopping me from turning into you-" Another sentence was cut off as Beck's boot made contact with the faux- Paige's head.
"Ha! But you can't take both of us in one form." Beck jeered, holding a Light Sword, "Paige! Take on 45! I'm going for Flauge!" Paige nodded in compliance, moving in on her target. Beck stared, not seeing his target. A loud splintering came from the elevator door, which was torn open and metal parts spread across the floor.
Beck looked back to see Paige fighting the Beck double, then sprung up the shaft.
Sword marks indicated when he had climbed up the elevator shaft. The cables nearest Beck shifted whenever he made a motion. Then again, Flauge was bigger and heavier then Beck, and he could be the one causing the cables to vibrate. A loud, grinding noise caught Beck off guard, and that flaw allowed Flauge to shove Beck into the oncoming elevator.
"Nice drop party you're having, Flauge," Beck grimaced, coughing code, "But next time you should leave drinks. Your guests will stay longer."
"Well, I left goodie bags everywhere," Flauge said, his irises shrunk to bits. "Make one more move, and this whole ship goes boom."
"And if I do stay still?" Beck asked innocently, to which Flauge responded, "Then I still press the red button."
"Yeah, but you didn't notice that I'm on the brink of derezzing," Beck said, "If you kill me now, it would be a hate crime. Go on, I dare you." Delta regretted saying such, when he saw Flauge raise his disc. Another second passed, before a cable grabbed Beck's arm and shot him out of the elevator shaft as the disk shot into the elevator roof.
"Hey, Beck, you look pretty injured," Tron said, beckoning for Delta to remove his helmet. Not that there wasn't much need to; save for a few thin strands, the entire helmet was shattered. The face behind the mask was in much worse condition. Cuts stained his face, code trickling from every slash. A black eye was hosted on his left eyelid. Even more slashes were visible on his Delta uniform, the signature "D" sliced by disk breathing was ravaged, heavy sighs of defeat visible in the cold air. "Beck, you alright?"
"Oh, yeah, sure," Beck ranted sarcastically, "I'm totally fine, being on the brink of death and all. Thanks for the assistance."
"Don't say I didn't tell you so." Tron reprimanded in a way that reminded Beck of Tron 2.0. "You stay here. I'll finish off Flauge. You get to the bridge and activate the self- destruct."
"Isn't that a bit extreme? The blast-"
"Will be contained," Tron said, putting the final word into his sentence, "It'll be sealed in a large force field. It won't hurt any civilians."
"Well, that's a weight off my back," Beck groaned, standing up and wincing from the injuries. "Any luck would be appreciated."
"Tron!" A voice shouted. Tron looked back and saw Japter and Sivet running into the corridor. "We came to assist you when we heard. What happened?"
"No time to explain," Tron sharply barked, "Japter, I want you to get Beck out of the area. Get him to Argon and put him under emergency medical care. Sivet, go to the bridge of the ship and steal all available information from the computers. Then, set the ship to self-destruct."
"Deal," Sivet said, doing a small, somewhat secretive handshake with Japter, "You'll have your explosion in no time." The three teams split up. Japter and Beck turned and headed towards the three-man Light Jet, but not before turning around and shouting, "Hey, Tron!" Tron turned around and saw Beck give him a supporting thumbs-up. "Take down Flauge for me."
Tron smiled, rolled a mask over his face, and slid down the elevator shaft.
The User World, Los Angeles, California, ENCOM Tower Laser Department, January 17th, 2011, 5:36am
Sam's eyes sagged from the lack of sleep. He was considering going to a Starbucks for a cup of coffee, but neglected it in favor of completing the correction algorithms. If he stopped, he would be lost within the maze of directions and coding.
Another consideration was calling Jet Bradley from the K department and telling him about what he discovered. Jet had previously gone on an adventure similar to Sam's in the ENCOM mainframe, but Sam believed himself to be smarter than believing that sort of thing; getting transported: preposterous. Not so much anymore. Now that Sam had experienced it, he was ready to believe anything about the ENCOM mainframe Jet told him.
"Almost done with the algorithms," Sam muttered to himself continuously, like a crazed and insane man in a mental institution. He then turned to a voice command input and spoke. "Computer, how much longer until the database can fill in the correct algorithms?" The grid-announcer voice, one that filled the basement, replied, "At this continued pace, the mainframe can auto-function in exactly one hour, forty-five minutes, and twenty seconds." Sam groaned and smacked the computer. Dust soared into the sky, forming a falcon of smoke. Sam looked up in frustration and saw a wi-fi signal on his macbook. He remembered what his father said aboard their Solar Sailer solace: "I thought I put that in my computer."A light bulb the shape of Apple's logo popped in Sam's head.
Using a long distance hotspot router, Sam was able to acquire the wi-fi signal coming from the computer in the secret basement, below Flynn's Arcade.
"Welcome to Flynn's Arcade, Mr. Flynn," the computer wrote in glowing green letters. "We are transmitting the remaining correction algorithms based on your current state." Sam sighed and leaned back in his much more comfortable chair. A large, flashing red light caught Sam's half closed eye.
"Warning!" The Large-Do-Not-Press Light read, "Coordinates for digitization are unsafe and therefore unusable. Alternative is using Argon Triskelion coordinates. Are these options okay?" Sam shrugged, not caring where he digitized. As long as he didn't have to manually operate the computer to lock-on to a secure location, it didn't matter. A whirring noise started up, followed by a green, blue and violet flash of light erupting from the room. When Dr. Greenwood entered the digitizing lab, Sam was gone, enveloped by the Grid. Dr Greenwood shrugged, pushed his glasses to the bridge of his nose, and went back to his studies.
"Anon, there's some more programs to your left!" Riot shouted, shooting several Heavy Sentries down with stun bullets, to distract them from the Groundrez Anon smashed in their faces. Anon checked the corridor and it's branched rooms for signs of hostility, then motioned for the Light Guard remaining to follow him.
A hint of red, slipping through the shadows, caught Anon's attention. A face glared from the shadows, and General Carnage stepped into the open. He was the most hideous program that Anon, or any other program for that matter, had ever seen. Instead of a regular helmet, it had a face that resembled that of the Jolly Trickster salute. Underneath the mask, from a few inches of plastic, was red, black and gray. Two shark-like eyes filled his sockets, and a large, drooling mouth similar to the Jolly Trickster mask was his expression. Instead of being straight and orderly, the teeth were sharper, nastier, and yellow, from the large amounts of ingested energy.
"What is with CLU's generals being big, red and ugly?" Anon asked jokingly, though secretly revolted. A large beeping noise, coming from the Grid Announcer, filled every program's ears. General Carnage, for one, was shrieking, parts of his body spiking in response to the noise.
"Attention," the computer bellowed over the Triskelion, "Digitization in progress. Program UB-967945, please stand clear. Program CARNAGE-78T, please stand clear." Carnage didn't bother moving, too involved with the noise causing him pain. Anon, on the other hand, ran back as far as possible.
A large cloud of energy shot down, nearly vaporizing all five programs. A human body, silhouetted in white, began rezzing in lines of code. A biker jacket, jeans, a games helmet, and sneakers came along with the figure, following the resolution process. His disk shone brightly as he unraveled his helmet. Sandy blond hair, stuck up at the end, shot out the forgotten helmet.
Sam Flynn observed his surroundings, then amazingly half-groaned, "I actually did it. I'm back on the Grid."
A/N: Greetings from Florida! So if you noticed the subtle reference (And by subtle I mean slap-in-the-face obvious), you'll know that the General attacking the Triskelion is a Grid version of the Carnage Symbiote from Spider-Man comics. And I came up with a trailer for the sequel, Tron: Unlimited, but I'll wait until I finish the epilouge. Speaking of which, the finale will a five chapter arc known as EndGame. The Epilouge will be titled "Epilouge: End of Line"(Go figure), and will bring in a trailer and characters for Tron: Unlimited. If you go to my profile, you will see the OC contest at the bottom of my news feed.
Wanted to thank you guys for sticking through till the End of the Line. I only intended for this to be a one-shot fic, but people like it so much, nd insisted I expand. I did, and you guys still want more. I'm pleased to announce that Aftermath has reached over twenty chapters of Anon, Tron, Delta and Light Guard. Thank you all for being great allies in my fight to free the Grid.
Next: Beck recalls how Argon fell, Tron and Paige put the hammer on Flauge, and Sam assists Anon and the Light Guard in stopping Carnage from achieving his ultimate goal: Sinking the Triskelion.