I finally got the chance to post another chapter, a bit later than I hoped, but the final exams of highschool are coming so i have to study. I really want to thank the ones who reviewed, I'm glad you liked it.
Now to the fun stuff... Tron gets his first taste of the User world, and also gets scared out of his wits by an infamous game. I remembered how bad it scared me when I first played, so I thought I'd torture my characters the same way my friends tortured me.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Please enjoy and review!
"HEY! WATCH IT WITH THOSE THINGS!"
I sighed as I methodically cut down the armor on Tron's left arm. He had come into the world wearing it and it was a pain to remove, even with the huge shears Mike provided.
"There you are, I'm done."
"Finally," the Monitor growled, peeling the black armor off and revealing his well-toned torso from underneath it. He still had his four pixels just below his collarbone imprinted on the skin, but apart from that the scar tearing from his left eye to his heart was most striking.
"Clu," he said when he noticed my stare.
"I know. Well, I'll let Mike take care of the rest," I said waving to the armor that covered his legs.
"The forever chaste Emily strikes again," Mike grumbled, making Tron chuckle and earning a death glare from me as I turned on my heels and stormed out of the room blushing like an absolute idiot. I could hear Mike tell something to the Monitor who burst into laughter, and i glared at the door.
"If that was about me, you're both dead!," I shouted and they both snickered.
Five minutes later, Mike emerged from the room chuckling.
"He's showering," he said, "and man, he's big!"
"He's a fighter after all," I reasoned.
"I wasn't talking about that," he grinned.
I frowned, not understanding and then it dawned on me what he meant. I smacked him hard in the head as he howled with laughter.
"That wasn't funny," I grunted, feeling my face ablaze.
"Yeah," he snorted, "it wasn't just funny. It was hilarious!"
I grabbed the closest object to my hand - a dictionary - and threw it, hitting him in the shoulder.
"Ow, what the hell was that for?"
"YOU FRIGGIN' IDIOT!," I shouted, hitting every inch of Mike as he cowered under my blows, "HE'S MY FRIEND AND NOTHING MORE! WE SAVED EACH OTHER'S HIDES A GAZILLION TIMES AND HE TRAINED ME ON THE GRID, AND YOU DARE MAKE SUCH JOKES?! THANKS TO YOUR STUPID WORDS, NOW I WON'T BE ABLE TO LOOK AT HIM THE SAME WAY EVER AGAIN!"
"Look at who the same way again?," came a rumbling voice from behind me and I turned only to smack my nose against Tron's collarbone. The Monitor had just got out of the shower judging by his wet hair and he wore a black t-shirt and jeans borrowed from Mike. I turned an even deeper shade of red, looking anywhere but in his eyes and bolted to the bathroom, locking the door behind me.
"Did I do something?," Tron's confused voice rang, followed by another chuckle and an explanation from Mike. There was silence for a second, before I heard a shocked yelp and the sound of someone hitting the ground really hard, along with a low growl.
I slid to the ground, pressing my back against the door before burying my face in my hands. I had never thought of Tron that way before, but now I couldn't help but notice that he was good looking. Really good looking. He was lean and strong, with that coppery brown hair and steel blue eyes...
"Oh, good God," I groaned, banging my head against the door, "why me?"
Someone knocked softly, making me jump.
"Emily?," came Tron's voice muffled by the door, "Are you okay?"
"No, go away," I growled, dropping my head into my hands again.
"Come on, let me in."
"No!"
I heard him grumble something along the lines of "Users, I'm going to derezz him" before he knocked again.
"It's okay, come out," the Monitor said, "Mike's downstairs."
I sighed, getting up and finally opening the door. The said Monitor was standing in the doorway looking pissed, and I did my best to avoid his gaze.
"Whatever he says, I never thought of you that way," I started.
"I know," he said, "and that's why my 'answer' hurt a little."
"A little?"
"A lot more, actually," he chuckled as his features softened.
"So you're not mad at me?," I asked.
"Why would I be?"
I gritted my teeth in frustration.
"Because I acted like an idiot," I snapped, "and because he supposed that I... we... God, that was so embarrassing."
"That's fine," he dismissed, "don't fuss over something like that. So, where do I stay?"
I pointed at the couch without a word, and he raised his eyebrows.
"Isn't this your room?"
"Mike snores, and there's also the fact that he brings girls home," I explained. "Just don't ask about the snoring part. To sum up, we are going to share a room for the time being. You should go to sleep, Program, we'll have to get up early tomorrow."
"So, tell me again, where are we going?"
I sighed, beginning for the hundredth time the same explanation, as I drove on the alley to the school parking lot the next morning.
"It's called highschool, Tron, and we have to go attend classes. Didn't you have that on the Grid?"
"No," he replied, rummaging through his book bag for the piece of paper on which I had written his User name and some other details such as my phone number, our timetable and also a small set of rules to prevent any... unwanted accidents.
1. Don't speak about the Grid when someone can hear you.
2. Please, for the love of anything good in this world, don't show off your fighting skills.
3. If you get in trouble, CALL ME. Or Mike, if I don't pick up. He'll know what to do.
4. No war stories, no showing off, and remember, your makings are tattoos, not circuitry.
5. Please try to obey the school rules.
6. KEEP A LOW PROFILE!
"So, tell me again how you are going to introduce yourself," I ordered as I parked the car.
"My name is Tim Anderson," the Monitor recited, "I am your family friend and I moved in from... what was it?"
"Austin, Texas," I groaned. "Can you remember it?"
"Yes."
"Good," I said, let's go, Tim."
We made our way to our first class which was Chemistry, taking a table to the back of the classroom. On our way there I tripped over someone's leg, almost face planting to the floor. When Tron lifted me up I saw the evil smirk on Jean's face, followed by an innocent expression, and I hissed, hurrying to the desk right when the teacher, Mr. Finch, came to his stand.
"Alright, class, today we are going to have an experiment with sulfuric acid, so please be careful."
He handed each of us vials with substances, scolding some boys who were messing with the sink faucets.
"The instructions are on the blackboard," he announced, "so get to work!"
I mixed the substances carefully watched by a confused Monitor who seemed to have absolutely no idea what to do with the vials. He tried pouring the contents of one into the other, but I noticed what he was doing and kicked his shin under the desk making him yelp.
"Not like that," I hissed, "unless you want to blow up!"
I put my finished experiment aside and snatched the vials from his hands, mixing them the proper way when...
BOOM!
A kid in the front row had mixed the wrong vials and the whole thing blew up on him, turning him a very... crispy shade of black. Beside me Tron began snickering, before unsuccessfully trying to stifle a laugh at the poor kid's shocked face and singed nose.
"You weren't kidding," he chuckled as I glared at him.
"Of course not," I hissed, kicking him again.
He dropped the vial, smashing it on the floor which immediately began smoking.
"GAH! It's burning!," Tron shrieked, bolting up from his seat and stomping on the spilled substance.
"Crap," I hissed, yanking a recipient filled with water and pouring its contents over the spill - and Tron's sneakers.
After a good scolding from the teacher and cleaning the mess - which took us the rest of the class - we went on with the day quite uneventfully until lunch break.
Tron picked both our trays as we headed to my usual table in the corner of the cafeteria, and I pulled out my IPhone, checking for any interesting news as we ate. I was reading something about some weird guys who had robbed a bank in a small town when someone else sat at our table.
"Oh," I groaned, "you again."
The guy, Andrew, was one of the jocks who thought that girls were only good for making sandwiches and looking good while holding his hand with a puppy-eyed smile, and this one in particular had a fixation on me unlike the others who opted for avoiding me. I doubted that he could even write a text correctly, let alone have an intellect bigger than that of a chicken.
"Hey, baby, you replacing me?," he exclaimed, looking hurt.
"One," I counted on my fingers, "don't call me baby, and two, there's nothing to be replaced. I'd add more but I'm afraid that counting to three might be too hard for you."
Tron snorted, almost choking with the pizza slice he was eating as I picked at a muffin.
"Aw, baby, you're so harsh," Andrew complained, "but you know I like it rough, so maybe we hook up sometime. I promise I'm better than Pretty Boy here. What do you think?"
The Monitor's gaze hardened and I could hear a low growl rumbling in his chest. Luckily his mouth was full of pizza, and I took the opportunity to end the discussion.
"Get out of here, creep," I hissed, "before 'Pretty Boy' makes you regret it."
"Oh, come on..."
Tron's fingers dug lines in the wooden table as he pinned the jock with a murder glare.
"GUYS! Cut it out right now!," I ordered as they were still glaring at each other. "Andrew, you should get going to your friends. As in now."
"Fine," he sneered, getting up, "I'll leave you have fun with your little boyfriend here. You weren't worth it anyway."
When the guy sat down at his table Tron finally relaxed a bit and I went on with my food.
"That's not a way to treat a woman," he grumbled, glancing at the jock.
"I'm used to it," I dismissed, "but I agree with that."
"There were some creeps like that on the G... where I come from," he corrected quickly, "and when one picked on Yori..."
"I can imagine your reaction was explosive," I snorted.
"What do you expect with the job I had?"
"Seems right," I agreed.
The last class was PE, and just think about it: as if one student with incredible reflexes wasn't enough, now we had two, one being a protector in his day.
"Aw, heck no," I muttered as we entered the gym - a bit late actually, because Tron had been plunged in a conversation about Kant's writings with our Philosophy teacher.
He was a step behind me, and I could feel his curious look inspecting everything around us as if he was assessing all exits and scanning for threats. Old habits die hard, I guess.
"What happened?" he asked softly, so no one would hear.
"We have dodge ball today," I explained.
"What's dodge...whatever?"
"Well, it's kinda what we do in the Grid, with balls instead of disks."
"And that's bad how? We are going to be really good at it," he replied confusedly.
"That's what worries me, because we're so good and you in particular are still a bit jumpy after all those cycles as Rinzler. We can hurt someone by accident."
"I can control it," he reassured as I shot him a weary look.
"We'll see."
When the class ended we were both laughing hard as we walked out of the gym.
"I never expected it to be so fun," the Monitor chuckled, "the teacher's face was priceless when he saw that stunt you pulled at the end."
After a particularly alert game of dodge ball in which Tron and I competed on the same team - the result was predictable, of course - we had to run a mile of obstacles on the track around the football field. Obviously the Monitor took it as a race and obviously again he won, bolting by the other students like a rocket and getting first to the finish line. I finished second and we started mock fighting over the result. The teacher had been dumbfounded by our acrobatics and I could swear he almost had a heart attack every time I did a move impossible for someone without our training. Everything ended with the victorious Program yanking me from the ground and tossing me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes while I shrieked and banged on his back, carrying me to the locker rooms.
"Let me down," I ordered, smacking his back again.
"Nope," came the answer.
"Please?"
"Nope, I won't."
I groaned, trying to find a way to get out of his grip. Maybe tickling would work...
The Monitor shrieked when I tickled both his sides before breaking into a laughing fit and nearly dropping me head first on the floor. I never was the one to retreat first, so I continued, ignoring his yelps and shrieks of protest.
"Are you going to let me down now, or do I have to continue?," I smirked.
"N-no, s-stop," he gasped, still laughing, "I'll put you down, j-just stop!"
I didn't see his impish grin as he dropped me on the floor, but I knew it was there.
Tron POV
The evening was warm and peaceful, something I hadn't experienced in the Grid. There was always something to do, and I prized any moment of peace I could get before Flynn or Anon came running in with some problem for me to take care of.
"AAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE!"
The ear-piercing shriek followed by a long stream of heartfelt swears made me jump, almost falling off the couch, as Emily bolted in the room and hid under the covers of the bed in less than a second, shaking badly. My hand instinctively reached between my shoulder blades, but I remembered I had no Disks here.
"Is it gone?," the User whimpered peeking from the covers, eyes wide with fear.
"What in the Grid has happened?"
"I was playing Slenderman and Mike thought it was funny to prank me," she explained, "as if there weren't enough jump scares in the game."
I went downstairs, smacking Mike's head on my way to the basement and I saw the opening screen of that game.
"Collect the pages," I muttered, sitting down in front of the computer, "it can't be that bad..."
Emily POV
"AAAAAAAARGH!"
A blood-chilling, girlish scream sounded from the basement, followed by Mike's booming laughter. I hurried downstairs to the basement in time to see Tron on the ground, backing off from the computer, and Mike laughing his arse off.
"What the hell was that?!," the Monitor squealed, glaring at the screen.
"See, told you it was scary," I chuckled, "but I never thought you'd get so scared playing it."
"Scared? Who said I'm scared?," Tron protested, "It just startled me, that's all."
"Yeah, and I'm a Gridbug," I retorted.
"You do tend to act like one sometimes."
"As in?"
"As in you can annoy the crap out of people," he replied, grinning wickedly.
"WHAT?!"
The Monitor got to his feet and peeled out of the room with me giving chase.
"IF I GET MY HANDS ON YOU, TRON," I shrieked, "YOU ARE ONE DEREZZED PROGRAM!"