Song Listened To : Dohl Dogs by Anatomic

*Chapter 143*

"Three?" Zed calmly wondered, him and Tessa caught glances in innocent curiosity.

"You are amongst the first to escape the Arcade, in a long while," the protector stated darkly as he shifted his foot, just barely, and ultimately triggered some sort of off switch for the portal. It's loud, pulsing rhythm dwindled with a slow wind-down before disappearing altogether. The protector gave Zed a look of challenge, as if to express the two would have to go through him, in loo of protecting his sacred, forgotten homeland, "Exactly what did you think you two were to accomplish on your little outing?"

"Sugar Rush was in danger," Zed began to feel confident, as if he could potentially persuade their captor, "It gained a virus. The only way to clean it out, for good, was to flush it from the outside world."

"You messed with the game's fate," the protector barked, both Zed and Tessa flinched, "Viruses happen. Leaving the Arcade to toy with something, you didn't and shouldn't have had control over, was against everything us gamers stand for."

"You can't just let a popular game, like Sugar Rush, lay to waste!" Zed argued.

Tessa began to feel her blood boil. She clenched her fists, tilted her head down, and kept her hawk-eye glare to their threat. She exhaled a calming breath and was floored to feel her wrecking abilities want so badly to surface, as if it was merely trying to give her a huge welcome home.

"What do you think happened to Tron!" The protector urged as he gestured his arm to the game's enchanting, mysterious wastelands, "No one did anything to help THIS game when it needed help the most. What makes you think we're all going to allow you to escape just to save a silly game like Sugar Rush?"

"Alright, listen here, PAL," Tessa suddenly grappled Zed's arm, tugged him out of the way, and pointed an angry finger in the protector's face, "The deed is already done, whether you like it or not. MY kingdom is safe, once more, because of us. Sure, we left and maybe we shouldn't have, but at least we were smart about it, and did it quietly."

"I can't let you go. All of Arcade can't know this kind of technology exists. It would create mayhem among the games... What an ultimate dream, to be a User," he scoffed as he gestured upwards into the black, starless sky, where the portal previously pulsed loud and clear, "You got your twenty four hours of fame... I can't let you back into the game stations with how much information you two harbor, not to mention your bastard additive."

"Bastard additive?" Tessa barked in hard confusion, though she largely looked over her threat, in a mean way and cocked an eyebrow, "Look, I know I'm a faux-code but you don't need to throw around other vulgar terms about me... Not like your stance, in this Arcade, serves any real purpose either."

"I'm here to protect Tron, and everything that was left standing. No one can know about the portal to the human world... So I'm afraid I'm going to have to end your journey here," he uttered darkly.

"Oh, don't be too hung up about it," Tessa growled, "What, you gunna overanalyze the situation and bore us to deletion? I've come way too far to just sit here and let you think you can alter our journey, or judge our characters."

"I know everything about you, Ms. Tessa Von Schweetz," he finally let a snide smile sprawl his face, "I know you're going to go back to your kingdom and sing about how YOU were a User for a day... Something no one will ever get to experience. You wanna know what happens after that?"

"We all kumbaya and move on with life? The only thing we want?" Zed finally spoke up, he waved his hand in an annoyed gesture.

"The rest of the Arcade wonders just where you can go to receive such an achievement-get on the leader boards," the protector snapped quietly as he got in their faces, "Tron's existence is revealed, the game world and the real world are united... Ultimately destroying the home we thrive in. So few have even made it to this portal... The fact that you two slipped out is unheard of."

"Well then, you're welcome, we're not signing autographs, sorry to intrude but we will just be leaving," Tessa urged in a dark, and now beyond annoyed, tone.

"And what of Mr. Kalivar, here," the protector stated slyly as Zed and Tessa turned heel. They were surprised that Tron's security system wasn't crashing down on top of them by now. Zed widened his eyes and softly slowed to a stop. Tessa gave him an incredulous look and felt her mind wash cold.

"A bad guy with a good intention," the protector croaked as he tilted his head down, though he kept his eyes trained to Zed's, "Once a defender of this very game... Don't tell me your memory is failing you."

"Not anymore," Zed uttered through grit teeth, as if the topic was hot to the touch.

"You're really going to forget the title you were rewarded with? Gunna let it slide down the drain by leaving the game and going against everything the code states?" He teased as he gave Zed a gentle, inquiring side-eye.

"That was a long time ago," Zed's voice crackled, he gave the protector a suspicious squint, "I stood for Tron, all that time ago... But, priorities shift."

"Teaming with game viruses and parading yourself around with mere faux-codes seems to look good on you," the protector snapped, "Or so you may think. Too bad you're now stuck with your decisions."

"I owed Sugar Rush," Zed defended, "I never turn my back on a game that needs me."

"Tron needed you," he retorted.

"Tron still exists, virus free!" Zed yelled, "Sugar Rush needed help. My family needed help... My allegiance may also be with Tron but I will never leave my own family hanging."

"Say what you will," Tron's one of many protectors urged, a few more bodies began to slowly push into the dark atmosphere surrounding them, as if they had been listening all along, "Sorry it has to end this way, Zed."

Just as Zed was about to protest, and further grope for the light-cycle baton poking out of his jean pockets, the ground underneath the group suddenly popped with a excited, dreadful quake of Tessa's wrecking rage. The beautiful portal sphere cracked in half, everything surrounding let out a loud, core shaking crumble with her renewed strength. All five of the surrounding protectors wobbled and gave Tessa a look of floored anxiety as she easily let her beautiful purple code flood the cracks of her willed destruction. She easily sent her pixels flying to their loud-opinioned foe and swarmed his being with her strict, coding regimen. She held her hands out, before her, and held her palms and fingers taut as she now had full control over his body. The protector grunted a noise of slight anguish and attempted to free himself of Tessa's grip, though with one small jolt, she quickly tightened her strict form and brought him back to where she wanted him.

"I know everything about you, as well," Tessa barked, a retort from his previous statement about her, "A Mr. Aroq Telvin, 31 Arcade years old... Not even a resident of Tron's. Home game... Excite Bike."

"You're from Excite Bike?" Zed asked with a hard, incredulous laugh, "Surely an extra from the sidelines?"

"You KNOW the pains of having a game unplugged," Tessa dared angrily, she knew she had hit jackpot once Aroq began to look floored by surprise.

"Of course I do," Aroq argued loudly, all four other protectors hung back in curious wait.

"Excite Bike got unplugged for, oh, what was it again?" Tessa fingered her lip in curiosity, "That's right... Game virus."

"This is beside the point!" Aroq began to look beat at his own game, with the way his eyes nervously dart back and forth between Tessa and Zed.

"This is WHOLLY the point! You KNEW your game was going down the shitter, you knew how to save your own game... But you DIDN'T. I may only have half a year of Academy, under my belt, but I know almost every game's arcade history, that has ever graced Litwak's," Tessa growled, her voice was stern and angry as she held Aroq tight in her unforgiving grip of coding; he grunted in agony.

"Let me go!" Aroq said through the strain, he wheezed a breath of anxiousness.

"You didn't save your game because you were scared your other protectors would think poorly of you," Tessa rushed, "You didn't leave the Arcade world to save your ONLY HOME, like we did... Because of popular opinion."

"I-I had no choice," Aroq's eyes welled with tears, though he remained in agonizing pain stiff in Tessa's control.

"You DID have a choice... Watching the one place you love, vanish for good... Wasn't worth defying code for. You were too busy being scared of what these other four jerks would think of you!"

"Tron is my new home," Aroq uttered through a hard, sad choke.

"That's good for you, but I'm not about to lose MY home over your guys' silly rules," Tessa snapped.

"Your home is safe again," another protector, to Aroq's left, dared to chime in, "We just can't let you live past this treacherous act."

"If I don't go back, you can bet your ass my whole entire kingdom will be up in arms, searching for this game," Tessa glowered, "You want to know what happens WHEN they find it?... You will pay for the innocent blood loss, and only one person will make your life a living hell, forget the rest of my kingdom."

Zed smiled and looked down to his feet briefly, he was glad Tessa had the spotlight.

"Wreck-It Ralph," Tessa snapped; all four protectors nervously caught glances with each other.

"That guy is worse than Bowser," the closest protector whispered to Aroq.

"I know Tron is smarter than waging a war against Sugar Rush, and Dead Zed," Tessa shook her head and gave Aroq a sarcastic grin of overflowing, protective cheek, "Tron would look mighty different with candy canes sticking out it's ass."

"Let 'em go," Aroq grunted.

"But, Aroq...!" The other protector began to lightly panic, though Tessa knew this was ultimately her only window to get her and Zed out of there.

"Let them go!" Aroq barked, though as if unleashed from an unforgiving, electric hold, he slumped over himself like a rag doll as Tessa released him of her hot coding.

Amidst the whirl of chaos, Tessa loudly hollered to Zed, cuing him to haul out. Zed immediately opened his light cycle, and without making sure Tessa was on board yet, he let the bike rocket off. He was ultimately thrilled to feel Tessa lunge herself onto her proper spot, behind Zed on the back of the bike, and latch onto him for dear life. Zed largely slapped his hand to the dash, and his other hand to the top of Tessa's thigh. He let his hand come alive with his swarming, hot blue coding, which angrily flared hers as well. Like a spitfire of a light display, the bike coughed a hard rev and spout out a brilliant, dangerous stream of a silver light ribbon. Their code, combined, easily began to understand just how to cooperate. The two rocketed away from the portal at near the speed of light, though just as Tessa whirled her attention over her shoulder, to look behind her, she could see all five of Tron's fierce defenders take flight upon beautiful, one-seater light flyers. Through the mess of her whipping hair, she gasped and gripped Zed's center tighter.

"Popular opinion, it's clear his wasn't the deciding factor!" Zed hollered to Tessa, in which she could barely hear, "At least we got a head start!"

"Zed, they're gaining!" Tessa worried as their much faster, meaner flyers cut through Tron's cold air with great force.

Zed merely glanced over his shoulder before he shoved his hands taut to his trusty light-cycles handles. He floored it, and though the bike jolted and gained a bit more speed, alongside the help of their indestructible silver coding, the five flyers still gained; Zed began to panic.

"I can't go any faster than this!" Zed hollered to the fierce, cold wind that nearly blinded him. He kept a sharp eye on their exit, across the vast, dark existence; so close, yet so far.

"Keep driving! Keep the bike steady!" Tessa demanded as she pointed down to the dash, as if she meant business.

"What are you doing?!" Zed yelled, his eyes bulged in growing terror as he could feel Tessa let go of his center.

"I said KEEP DRIVING!" Tessa bellowed, though Zed fearfully shook his head, as if to protest, in fear of her flying off the back of the bike, though he kept his rapid speed.

"Tessa are you crazy?!" Zed cried as Tessa miraculously wormed her positioning on the bike so that both of their backs were pushed together. She straddled the back of the bike backwards and had a perfect vantage of her enemies, which quickly were gaining.

"I'm eventually going to swap codes with a user-made gamer!" Tessa angrily hollered to Zed, who was now behind her, "If you haven't discovered that I'm crazy until now, well then, you've got another thing coming!"

"Tessa, y-!"

"SHUT UP AND DRIVE!" Tessa argued as she finally trained all her concentration to Tron's protectors.

She tilted her head down and in a rush of heated fear and anger, she could feel her searing code nearly ignite with the grumble of all six of the powerful, incredible pieces of machinery that drowned out every single last strand of existence within a twenty foot radius of them. She gave the first flyer a hard, hateful glare and let her palms come alive with her unforgiving coding. Through her massive adrenaline rush, and the ultimate need to protect her own, she threw out her arm and let Tron's glorious, slick grid come alive with her own silver coding. With a hard grunt, a massive swipe of her code-riddled arm and a heart ablaze with anger, she sent a decent size chunk of Tron's heavy, metal grid soaring up into the first flyer that graced their bubble. She hollered a noise of pure terror as the flyer suddenly exploded into hot, light blue pixels and strands of molten light ribbon goo. Tron's game rung proud with the sound of an ultimate game over. Tessa largely shook her head, exhaled a hard groan and rid her skin and fingers of the first dead protector's pixels.

"Shit, Tess!" Zed loudly worried, though with the ear bleeding explosion, Zed's strict concentration wavered and the bike veered lightly, though he quickly snapped the bike out of its hydro-planing unsteadiness and pushed the two closer to their destination.

"Penny has nothing to worry about now," Tessa growled as she largely eyed another flyer that dared to approach, though the last four protectors began to look wary to mess with Tessa, "I'll have four heads on my hands, over her."

"Tessa, you can't kill Tron's protectors!" Zed panicked.

"The portal is cracked, there's no escaping even if anyone wanted to!" Tessa argued as she readied her hands for her next fight, "This is for my home!"

Tessa felt her eyes well with the sting of on coming tears, though she grit her teeth in ever-more growing adrenaline and furrowed her eyebrows into her expression of war-ridden anguish.

"This is for Sugar Rush!" Tessa hollered as she easily manipulated Tron's grid once more and, before the second flyer could aim the vehicle's two sleek laser guns, straight for Tessa, she exhaled a hard cry and sent the second chunk of grid upwards into the flyer.

Tessa covered her face with the back of her forearm and largely grappled for the back of the bike, so not to slide away from her unstable position on the bike. Zed barked a startled noise of ultimate pain as the explosion, directly over head, covered the two in hot goo and pixels, though it easily slid off of them like water to sludge, with the whipping speed they were going. Tessa shook her head and beamed the last three flyers a mean smile.

"Bring it on, bitches!" Tessa loudly hollered, she cupped her hands over her mouth to get her point across, "I could do this all day!"

"You're going to get us killed!" Zed argued as he kept the bike steady, though Tessa looked over her shoulder.

"Pull up your panties then, start swerving!" Tessa hollered, though Zed have the dash of his bike an incredulous glare.

"I'll lose control if I swerve!" Zed bellowed as he gestured one arm out to the grid.

"If you know what's good for you, bob and weave!" Tessa angrily yelled, she quickly averted her attention back to the flyers and felt her heart race and surge at the speed of sound.

Tessa kept her strict posture on the bike as she was surprised to feel Zed sway the bike back and forth, in sort of a lazy zig-zag motion, though the second she could see down the barrel of their laser guns light up and reach an unforgivable temperature, she held her fingers taut, molten fire of silver coding ready for battle. Just as soon as she thought the air couldn't get any colder, the heat of the laser's cough of short ammunition seemingly froze time. Strict ribbons of molten laser began to loudly pierce the land all about them, which sent chunks of the gloriously slick grid into an explosion frenzy all around. Tessa smirked as she could suddenly feel Zed zig zag the bike with a lot more fervor.

"Told you!" Tessa barked, though she trained her eyes to the hot blue shards that aimed straight for them.

Before she could double think if her trick could potentially work, with expert timing and reflexes, she let her coding manipulate each dagger of heat, and like swiping away vines from a tree, every single shot of ammunition, that rocketed at the two, was largely interrupted and shot down to the way side. After a few seconds of successfully deterring each attack, the two flyers at the front quickly relaxed to reload. As the barrels whirred and the gap of silence coated their existence, Tessa took this as her opportunity to really test her coding skills. With a hard cry of pure anger and anguish, she threw out her arms, gripped her fingers taut, and allowed her coding to swarm the entire flyer, to her left. The flyer buzzed a hard, angry noise and lost altitude, though before it could endure its own crash landing, Tessa grunted a hard noise, and with all of her wrecking might, she thrust her arms in a hard swipe to her right, ultimately sending the compromised flyer directly into the other.

Zed attempted to cover his head with one hand as the bike largely wobbled. Both flyers exploded into hard, angry pixels of a fire. With a core-shaking, reverberating boom, liquid fire of blue coding spilled onto Tron's grid before ultimately flashing a hard 'game over' signal and disappearing. Tessa slumped her arms and hands to the hot, back housing of the bike and exhaled a hard, raspy growl of a breath. She glared down the last flyer, though she knew exactly who it was. She tilted her head, and through a look of near pleading hate, she gave Aroq a massive threat display, as if to goad him into trying her awesome abilities, her fervor to stop at nothing to protect her kingdom. Before Tessa could ultimately end Aroq's life for good, his flyer slowed and, much to her surprise, he cut through the stream of cold air they followed and turned around in a fit of defeat; ultimately proving that him and his flyer were strictly no match for Tessa and her coding abilities. Tessa largely slumped her shoulders and watched Aroq's flyer vanish into the distance, the only thing left was the sound of the cold, silent whip of wind that surrounded their existences. Zed's bike tirelessly growled, it proved its dominance over the land and rocketed the two to ultimate safety.

"A-Are they gone?!" Zed loudly cued as he nervously glanced over his shoulder.

"They're gone, get us home," Tessa urged as she shakily switched her positioning, so that she was sat correctly on the bike again, "Don't slow down, we never know who else could follow us."

"Yes, ma'am," Zed urged, a polite notion he knew to convey to her, as if her demands were something he'd never ignore anyhow, in this dire situation.