The two Users nodded at each other before stepping away to put space in between them. They stood still, hearts pounding in their ears before they began their sprint forward.

Sam could feel his blood pumping in all parts of his body as he lifted the baton up and grasped the opposite ends with both hands. He couldn't hear Victoria beside him but he knew she was following his movements.

Sucking in a tight breath, Sam took a strong push off the ground and lunged forward until his body was parallel to the ground. High in the air, he quickly snapped the baton in two and felt the vibrations it let off as lights streamed out from the 'broken' end of each handle. As the bright white light quickly knotted into the complicated inner works of the light cycle, the weight of the bike quickly pulled him down to the ground.

But before it could touch the ground, he quickly revved the engine and was off as it's wheels landed on the luminescent floors.

He had never felt so free.


A staggered gasp left Victoria as her bike landed a bit roughly on the floor. Though her knuckles were white from gripping on the handles as she soared across the board beside Sam, on the inside she was a quivering mass of jelly.

If this was anything like the battles they had to fight a few minutes ago, this was going to be brutal.

Hearing a mass of engines pull up, Victoria's head shot up to glance around her. The programs that had warned them earlier had pulled up to form a V-shaped ensemble with them in the center.

Unlike the opposing team, all their light cycles were shades of white and blue. Sam's bike, an iridescent blue while hers was the same but slightly lighter.

She slowly leaned to the slight as she guided the bike to take a large turn with the rest of the group. Ahead of them were the intense crimson bikes as they patterned across the grid leaving streaks of red.

Her heart, if possible, began beating harder.

"Here we go," Sam whispered as they neared their enemies.

The two at the ends of their formation quickly spit off until three of them were left. Then the man on Sam's right took the tunnel down into the bottom layer.

Sam then glanced to his left and spotted Victoria still following faithfully.

They continued cruising forward watching one of the players on their team in the lower level get surprised and crash into a stream of red light as the opposing player streaked in front of him last minute. He was quickly derezzed into hundreds of pieces of light.

Sam quickly looked forward again, this was not good.

"We need to work together!" He shouted through his helmet, hoping she heard. The slight nod of her head was her indicator that she heard and understood.

"If we-"

"SAM!"

Sam whipped his head forward as Victoria pointed to right his side.

The red player crashed into his side putting Sam off balance the slightest as the program tried to get him to loose control of his bike. Then Sam's stomach dropped likea bomb as his bike lurched down as he fell into a level divider.

With a relieved sigh, he looked up with a smug smirk at the program who was as equally surprised.

"Ah!"

Victoria's surprised shout notified him that she wasn't beside him anymore.

She was pushed off by another red program into a different direction.

Shit.


Victoria's teeth grinded into each other angrily as she was tailed by a program, she was at full speed but the program was slowly inching forward. Spotting a spiraling tunnel, she quickly took that chance to go in. She stood in the outer ring of the spiral as the program drove skillfully in the inner ring.

Totally not fair.

She was touching the indicating level arrows and could feel her bike speed up but so was the program. Spotting her opportunity she quickly slammed on the brakes and ceased creating her own light streams letting the program speed past her. She could see the program glance back but continue down. Speeding her bike up once more, she could see the program reach the last spiral and move toward the lower level.

Victoria then took a leap of faith.


Sam let out a cry of excitement as he mimicked the move he had seen before by one of the programs and forced the red program to crash into his white light. Their team was slowly picking off the red programs but so were they in taking out their members one at a time, especially CLU.

Looking around he spotted a white cycle stream down a spiraling tunnel with a red cycle hot on his heels. Sam prayed that that wasn't Victoria but as he watched the white cyclist make a skidding stop in the middle of the first ring and nearly get run over by the red cyclist, he knew it was her.

He then watched with a bated breath as she paused for a second before jumping off and down the middle of the spirals. Her arm reached back and pulled out her identity disk, activating it.

Sam could feel himself hold his breath as she crashed onto the ground beside the program and forced her disk down his neck, derezzing the biker. He was about to let out another shout of victory when her bike smashed into pieces under her sending her tumbling along with the red program's ownerless bike.

"TORI," Sam bellowed out as he quickly began making his way toward her.

She lay motionless.


CLU watched Sam as well as Victoria's rather foolish act with a smirk. They were performing just as he expected, this was more exciting than he anticipated.

Spotting the last program on the opposing team make his way toward him from his right, CLU waited calmly.

His bike jerked to the left slightly as the program crashed into him.

'Bad move,' he thought as he lifted his hand to take a slice at the program's exposed neck. As he hit the surface, the program immediately went limp onto his bike.

Reaching over, CLU deactivated the auto cruise and drove away as the bike teetered out of control.

'Now, to get to the real business,' CLU began making his way to the down Victoria.

He let out a laugh.

This was going to be good.


As he made his way toward her as fast as he could, Sam was caught off guard as CLU shot down over him to land beside him. Sam moved out of the way before CLU could push him but could not stop the disk that flew from CLU's hand to hit the rear end of his bike.

Sam was sent flying and rolling across the cold floor. Coughing out the impact from the fall, Sam quickly stood and pulled out his disc.

CLU was circling them as he moved to catch his flying disc.

Paying heed to the distracted CLU, Sam ran toward Victoria's fallen figure. He kneeled after making sure CLU was still far and laid a hand on her neck.

"Victoria, you need to wake up," He said feverishly as he brushed her bangs away from her face. She was not responding, not even a twitch.

"Vic-shit," Sam was back on his feet standing over his fallen friend with disc out front.

Then a blinding light from the side had Sam stepping back, almost stepping on Victoria's hand, to shield his eyes. That something landed on the ground roughly with a stream of light behind it.

It stopped as CLU crashed into the white stream but he had maneuvered the bike so he would not derezze but simply use the impact of the crash to sail over the light.

"Illegal combatant on the Grid,"

Sam stared in awe at the car and it's large ass wheels. His attention was quickly stolen as the top of the vehicle lifted up.

"Get her and get in," A scrambled voice echoed as the rider turned it's head toward Sam. Sam looked around in a panicked motion, not quite sure if he should trust the stranger.

"Get. IN"

Sam quickly scooped up Victoria off the ground and moved into the only available seat with the unconscious woman on his lap. Before the top of the vehicle could settle back down, the driver was off taking an erratic but skilled turn down the Grid.

"System failure, release Rinzler,"

The Light Buggy made it's way up toward the top level.

Sam looked into the side rear-view mirror and could see the orange dot on the ground as CLU. CLU slowly stood as three streaks of red light streamed past him.

"Game on, old friend."

"Uhh, hey, we've got company," Sam said as he watched the three programs including Rinzler flip on panels to access the top level.

"Hang on," the driver replied.

The car took a jerk as it smashed into the program riding beside them. Victoria's head bobbed back and forth against Sam's chest. Sam lifted a hand to gently hold her head still as he glanced at the driver.

"Who are you?" He yelled through the sounds of the booing crowd. His question remained unanswered as he, Sam assumed, pressed buttons beside the gear shift.

"What was-"

The car shook the slightest as something exploded from behind them.

Oh.

But someone was still behind them.

Then the car shot missiles into the wall of the stadium showing a gaping cliff slide.

'What kind of car is this? Oh crap, we're not going to make that!" Sam thought and was quick to voice that as they neared the edge. His whole body tensed as he unconsciously wrapped his arms around the passenger in his lap to protect her from the imminent crash into the cliff side. Maybe he shouldn't have gotten in the car!

"Made it."

Sam glared weakly at the driver.