Tron: Deliverance

NEW GAME

By the fourth round of disc battles the Lady Renegade began to wonder how Jet had so much energy. He sprinted around the arena, playing his instrument with wild abandon. Soon, Hilda began to follow his lead and summoned her beats set to compliment his playing or to make loud and brash sound effects. Both of their voices were amplified now thanks to her software. Rand proved himself to be a decent fighter. He was able to keep the odd guard away from the two musicians while Paige handled the bulk of the fighting.

Paige derezzed a guard with an efficient throw of her disc. She elbowed another, caught the disc and derezzed that one too.

"Uh oh! Our Lady Renegade has a mean throw and an even meaner elbow" He strummed a tune on his guitar. Cheers and laughter rippled through the stands, growing into screeches of surprise and elation when Jet ducked a disc thrown at his head and continued playing.

"You'll need better aim if you want to shut me up glitch-brain. I got enough songs to go all night!" He called to the guard that had thrown the disc. This made the guard quite angry, who charged at Jet. He never made it there as Paige flitted past him, burying her disc in his shoulder as she went. He crumpled to orange cubes behind her as she flipped to the next opponent.

At Paige's victory over the last guard of the round, Hilda played a triumphant tune. The crowd laughed and cheered as Jet joined in. Then, a new squad of guards rose, drawing a round of boos and jeers from the audience.

Paige huffed and leapt into action. To be completely honest with herself, she was running low on energy. Her disc throws growing sloppier and her reaction times diminishing. The match ups were getting steadily easier, the guards she had to fight were going from skilled to downright unpracticed. If they survived this, Paige owed Gem a very serious 'thank you'.  Nevertheless, she was beginning to feel the strain on her systems from constant combat.

The whole pack of guards rushed her. She dived to the side and jumped up a platform, trying to thin them out. She ducked a disc that whizzed past her head.

"Wonder what this button does?" Jet's voice rattled through the stadium, then screeching feedback followed directly behind his question. Paige flinched and covered her ears at the offending noise. She shot the User and music program an accusatory look. Jet was standing by Hilda's beat set, desperately smashing buttons in an attempt to make the squealing noise cut off. Hilda held up a hand, forestalling him, then pressed another button. The noise died.

Realizing that the noise had distracted her, Paige pivoted to view her opponents. But none of them were focused on her anymore. The horrible feedback noise had the useful effect of drawing the attention of all five guards towards the three programs standing in a huddle, having a casual conversation.

"I'm afraid I'm going to have to ban you from touching my instrument Jet" Hilda said in mild admonishment.

"Seriously, even I could tell you're not supposed to hit the big red button that says 'Emergency Siren' and I'm not even a music program" Rand said.

Jet had his back to Paige and their opponents so she couldn't see his face. The five black guards stalked towards him, raising their discs. Shouts and raucous laughs echoed from the stands, which Jet ignored.

"Yeah, thats my bad. But what am I supposed to do with these idiot black guards interrupting us every time we start singing a song? Not to mention they're super incompetent and just plain dumb. Annnnnnd they're standing right behind me aren't they"  Jet, turned slowly to see the crowd of opponents standing behind them. He smiled, an enormous fake smile. "Heeeeeey guys. We were just talking about you"

"I think we run now Jet" Hilda murmured, her low voice rendered unnecessary by the amplification software that bounced it off the walls. 

"Cheese it!" Jet screeched, turning on his heel and sprinting away.