"Who are you guys?" Zed blurted out. The other mechanics stirred a little as if acknowledging they thought the same.
"We are the Renegade," the taller Program in all black answered.
"You two? So there's always been two?" a mechanic from the back asked.
Well, if by two you mean me and Cyrus, then yes… Beck mused to himself with bitterness.
"Yes, but he's the one you've all seen fighting Clu's army," Tron motioned over to Beck who stood tall.
"Are you really Tron?"
There was silence for a long moment. Everyone seemed frozen to their spot waiting for an answer from either of the two renegades.
"No, neither of us are Tron. I, however, am a Child Basic," Tron answered with a half truth and half lie. Someone once said the best lie started with a kernel of truth. Or was it every lie has a kernel of truth in it?
The mechanics gasped in shock. Child Basic's were not heard of anymore. When Flynn brought the Grid to a new system some Programs didn't make the transition and the others were eventually updated with their old coding rewritten without derezzing the program. These Programs usually stayed in Tron City and never ventured outside of that area of the Grid.
The black renegade turned to the white one who nodded in return. He reached back and took out his disk splitting it into two and gave the white half to the taller Program. When they reattached their disks the two colors of the suits switched to the everyone's amazement.
"So that's how you look like Tron!"
"Yes, now let's show you all around and get you guys used to your new home, I can't imagine that the Occupation won't be monitoring the garage," Tron turned around and proceeded to leave the hologram room with another exit.
"This is going to be awesome," Mara whispered dreamily to Zed, who simply sighed.
"If only Beck was here,"
"Have the competent one brought to me,"
"Of course, Clu,"
Dyson exited the General's, no, Clu's quarters and proceeded to head to the "competent one"s room. After following a path of seemingly endless halls and mazes he came up to the door and opened it without asking.
"Program. Up. Now," Dyson ordered with force. Pavel rose to his feet and followed Dyson, who did not wait for Pavel or check if he even heard him.
Paige was walking around the hanger looking at one of the larger Light Jets that wasn't able to be a simple baton. It was a two person jet but it could be piloted by one. Just looking at it made her more aware of the baton she had attached to her leg. She wanted to break it open and fly to her spot up on the bridge just so she could happily elate to the fact that Clu was here. Perfection was here. Now the Renegade was in for it.
What if I bring him in now? What would Clu do? Paige imagined that she would have her own platoon of soldiers to lead and help create order and perfection on the Grid. Without a second thought she went up to a guard.
"Soldier, if Tesler or any higher ups require my presence inform me immediately," the soldier saluted in response and Paige proceeded to the middle of the hanger. She broke her baton and was flying through the hanger the next second.
"Tron I'm going back to the garage," Tron looked at Beck warily.
"Is that really the best thing to do right now?" Tron challenged in his condescending voice.
"Maybe, maybe not, but we should start keeping track of Tesler's moves," Beck ignored Tron's tone and replied casually.
Tron felt an immediate response on the end of his tongue but fought against it. He was confident in Beck's ability to stay hidden and not bring unwanted attention back to the Outlands.
"I need you here. You need to start training them," Tron motioned to the Holoroom where the mechanics were currently staying.
"You know I'm not the best leader, remember how it went when Mara was trying to help us? She wasn't ready and neither was I," Beck reasoned. Tron raised an eyebrow, Beck was getting smarter every cycle. Or at least when it didn't have to deal with a certain Commander, but he was learning from his mistake.
"Well shouldn't you stay here and learn how to be a leader?" Tron once again fought against Beck's decision.
"I think we have to figure what's more important. A simple micro or two of training, or a micro of surveillance and recon?" Tron raised his hand to his chin as he digested Beck's reasoning. He wasn't wrong, but neither was Tron. It was all down to choice at this point.
"Alright Beck, but I want you back within the next micro you understand?"
"Yes, don't worry I'll be fine," Beck patted the back of his mentor "Now shape up our newbies,"
Tron sighed. He'll, in a way, always be a "newbie" Tron mused.
Now let's get a good look at this Super Recognizer.
Paige flew the dark sky of Argon. She looked down at the city and saw that it was the same old. Small lights coming from Light Cycles were flying by headed to their next destination with their packets of information. Paige kept looking down at the city for most of her flight. Not noticing the more than usual amount of Recognizers flying by. Eventually, she did look up as she was nearing the crash site and saw red. Near the crash site in the distance was a fleet of ships as they seemed to protect and quarantine the site. Paige looked back down to see how the ground looked and wasn't surprised to see that there were tanks at almost every corner and a group of guards stationed with them.
Suddenly, Paige's jet was jolted and she was descending jerkily. She looked up and then behind her to see that she had just grazed a ship. Struggling to keep the jet flying, Paige was starting to veer to the right.
Just my luck, can't keep acting like an grunt if I want to get in good graces with Clu. Paige spat at herself. Granted the ship wasn't a Recognizer that made the distinguished grumbly hum of their engines, but she should have kept up her usual awareness.
She had so much trouble keeping the jet from derezzing she had started flying near the border of the Outlands.
Nearing the ground she saw a open area where she could land her failing jet.
3, this is not gonna be pretty.
2, this is probably going to hurt.
1, this is all the Renegade's fault.
The jet disintegrated as soon as it hit the Grid leaving Paige with too much momentum. As soon as she hit the ground she instantly blacked out.
Beck came at a stop on top of one of the smaller mountains between the base and Argon. Even from this distance it was obvious. There was a horde of Occupation ships out over the city, mainly over where the garage was supposed to be.
What's going on? This many ships can only mean… Beck instantly figured out the reason and shut his eyes. He let out a long breathe, it failed to relieve the newly acquired stress.
I guess it was only a matter of time. Beck thought woefully. He turned his bike around and retreated back to home base.
Tron had taken Mara and Zed up on their offer of training the others in simple combat. Tron figured his close friends had gotten more fighting done than the others and while Beck was out it would be best for his friends to learn from other friends other than the Renegade no one knew existed.
He starred at the Programs as they fought until he heard the door behind him open. He turned to see Beck's first Renegade circuit lines.
"Aren't you a little early?" Tron turned to look back at the new acolytes.
"Clu's in town,"
Tron tensed up. He knew this moment would come but regardless of his preparation of this knowledge, it did little to prevent the dread that came with it. Tron forced himself to relax before Beck noticed, hoping to keep his façade of knowing what to do in every situation.
Beck noticed when he finished his sentence that Tron seemed to almost flinch. It was brief but Beck saw his mentor's body stiffen and relax. Almost as quick as a shiver. Beck smirked. Good to see he still has settings other than "tight ass".
"It's good that you came back before you went back to the garage,"
"Not like I had a choice, there's gotta be at least five hundred ships out there!" Beck exclaimed.
Leave it to Clu to make a show of himself.
"We'll just have to stay here for a few cycles, we can't expose ourselves when he's doing all he can to find us,"
"What?! No! We go out there and show him we're not afraid of his army!"
"Beck, this is more serious than ever before. If we do something right now we could jeopardize this location and risk everything we've worked on to get to this point,"
Didn't we have a conversation like this one already? Beck thought. Recalling the incident with the Roadster and Link. No… I was the one telling us to stay low that time…
Beck didn't speak for a moment as he mentally fought with himself over this information. On one hand Tron was right, this is as risky as it's ever been. More is at stake than just himself, but if they just sit there Clu will know they're afraid, he'll know they're hiding. And Clu isn't Tesler, as bad as Tesler is Clu is worse, much worse. What would happen to the Programs of Argon?
When hasn't it been risky? It's always been risky. Heroes take risks all the time for the greater good. Was he really calling himself a hero? No, he wasn't a hero, Tron was the real hero. Fighting for the Users! That's the Tron Beck grew up hearing about.
For the Users
For the Programs
For Freedom
"No, this isn't what we do, regardless of what's changed we are still the Uprising," Beck voice was solid as stone. Every bit in his body told him this was right.
Tron looked over at the boy's new found confidence. This was different than his other acts against Tron, this was stronger, bolder, heroic.
Beck walked over and starred through the glass at his friends.
"They are here because they know this is risky, they're here because of them, they're here to fight, they're going to fight Clu whether he has one guard with him or a thousand," Beck's voice seemed so determined it was amazing the glass didn't shatter from it's strength.
"Beck…" Tron started slowly. Beck turned to look at Tron. His eyes were not filled with his arrogant glare but filled with pride and hope.
"You've come a long way," Tron answered. He stared at Beck's eyes. Hard and focused, these eyes were familiar, though a different color than the last time he saw this look he knew it. It was the same look he saw in the mirror when he was working with Flynn. Working to creative the perfection system. Before Clu.
Beck turned toward the glass once more.
"What about them?"
"They're not ready, you know that,"
"Right, but I don't think I should be out there alone, like you said it's risky,"
"Are you asking for my company?" Tron joked.
"Possibly, but you got trapped under that debris earlier, you up for a little action?" Beck shot back.
"How about we do a one on one and see how far you've really come," Tron answered heading back to the elevator down to the hologram room.
"You're on, old Program,"
The two ended their spar after a half an hour of exchanges. Tron was surprised, the boy seemed so focused it was hard to find an opening to exploit, but Tron never failed in making his way past a defense.
Beck was exhausted, the old Program managed to test Beck's defenses and he found it near impossible to stop all the attacks that came at him, luckily a few dirty tricks that Beck picked up on had Tron on the defense as well.
As the room lit back up there was clapping. All the mechanics had surrounded them in a large circle and were clapping in amazement.
Beck and Tron looked around in wonder. It was rare for the two to have an audience, an audience that wasn't out for their deresolution that is.
"You two are the real deal aren't you," Zed exclaimed in excitement. Shouts and howls were heard from a few Programs as they crowded the Renegades.
"It'd be bad if we weren't," Beck joked back with his voice modified.
"Now i'd like you all to listen, we have some rather troublesome information," Tron said. His white armor shining brightly, "Clu is in Argon,"
The room went quiet. Similar to when they asked if he was Tron.
"You'll be staying here and training with the holograms and each other, you've all seen the place and will be okay while we're out," Beck continued informing the others.
"But we should come with you!" Mara complained.
Didn't she say that once before?
"No Clu's brought his army, this is not the time for us to show ourselves," Tron answered back.
"We're going out to get some details on Clu's army, we'll be back in a cycle or two," Beck looked around at his friends. Most of them seemed wary of him leaving but he had no choice. There was a moment of silence as everyone digested the facts.
"Alright, leave it to us," Mara boosted as she intertwined her arm with Zed's. He caught on instantly and took the same pose as Mara.
"Right, leave it to us! By the time you guys get back we'll have our own army," Zed joined in.
If only. Beck thought.
Beck and Tron were nearing the main road that led to Gallium and Argon. This section of the Outlands was flat for miles out, allowing a decent view of Argon.
"Beck do you see that?" Tron shouted at his quickly evolving apprentice. Beck looked up to where Tron was pointing. In the sea of red that was Clu's army was a trail of smoke from a small red source.
Must be a baton jet, anything that small has to be one. Beck thought.
"What do you think happened?" Beck shouted back as they neared the edge of the Outlands.
"Who knows, but it's our first stop," Tron accelerated his Light Bike with Beck following suite.
AN: Just to reiterate, these first few chapters are kind of rough. They're at a point in which i'm proud of them, but I want to get the story out there. Later chapters will have more heart in them and won't be so sparse.
-Rose's Requiem