Of Frisbees and Jetpacks

[notglitching]

Who: Rinzler and anyone or everyone.
When: Now!
Where: Wandering around the city. He dropped in not far from the blown up ISO-building, if people doing stuff there want to run into him.
What: Confusion! And so much wordvomit.
Warnings: ...it's Rinzler? Anything from combat to mindfrackery, depending on who he runs into. Internal trauma pretty much

Comments

[notglitching]

The structure was wrong.

Rinzler stands across the street, in the small alcove of an adjacent building as he looks at the wrecked structure. He's not taking special care to conceal himself, but it's habit to stand out of direct sight, ready for quick, silent action should the need arise.

It was broken, wrecked, a number of milicycles ago, if his scans are correct (should be fully wiped by now-half-broken things are an imperfection, provided holes for rebels to cower in). But more than the destruction, the design bothers him. Partly normal, but... adapted. Spiraling delicate structures, crystalline shapes and twisting apertures. Shattered now, broken-but still visible in the shapes and pieces that remain.

ISO work.

His fists clench slightly, body leans forward in a dangerous curve as Rinzler stares at the building that should never have been. The ISOs are gone. Derezzed. He was tasked with finishing it, hunting down those who ran, those who hid, spilling their voxels across the street. He succeeded (he always did), and Clu had smirked, a sharp edge to his smile as he'd praised his creation, blue eyes gleaming.

Rinzler can't have missed this many.

His growl stutters faintly. What else? Imitators, programs so twisted and in error as to follow the paths of dead imperfections over Clu's way (the only way permitted)? He'll be sent after them regardless, he doesn't doubt. He jerks his head sideways, frustrated. He needs to find Clu. Receive orders.

...

He still doesn't know how he got here.

The frustration and confusion fall away to sharp alertness as his aural sensors detect something-growing, closing. A lightcycle. Just one. Rinzler's limbs are coiled, head tilting faintly past the alcove to detect circuit color, path of motion. A hand slips to his own baton should pursuit be needed.

[[It's all good. :D No clue where that one's going to end up myself yet, so I'm just treating these all independently for the moment. Should definitely be before the Clu one, though.]]

[namesram]

The red lightcycle flashes past Rinzler's aperture and slides to a halt in front of the building, the rider -- lacking the usual safety helmet, his hair blown back, his circuits incongruously blue -- craning his head to look up at the half-rerezzed structure. His head is turned away, concealing his response to the spectacle. When he turns back, it's to survey the area's levels and crossings, apparently looking for something. He's serious, alert, wary of interference; but there's a hopeful cast to his look that the enforcer might have recognized in another system long ago.

[[Yay! Works for me. :D]]

[notglitching]

The cycle flashes past the opening, and Rinzler relaxes faintly at the familiar red. A second look makes him stiffen. The program doesn't match. An anomaly.

It slides to a stop in front of the wreckage, the program looking up. Definitely not Clu's. Even ignoring the circuit color, the program's bearing, appearance-it was all wrong. (Familiar).

Rinzler pushes past the faint shiver of error, tilts his head as he considers the other program. He's looking for something. He knows this building, this place. What happened.

A joined disk silently undocks-still inactive, unlit; no sudden hum to give him away. Rinzler glances up, swiftly scales part of the structure adjacent to him as he picks a better angle.

He needs answers.

[namesram]

Ram's lightcycle has always rezzed up red. He doesn't even wonder why anymore, and had been amused to learn that it used to happen in the old system too. 'Course nobody's lightcycles had matched back then. So many things had been different.

A flicker of motion catches his attention, but by the time he focuses, Rinzler's out of sight. He's not even sure if he saw what he thought he did; it could have been a shadow, or a reflection from an upper level. His gaze flicks upward, then back at the now-vacant aperture.

[notglitching]

The program glances up, gaze panning the area above before flickering down to where he had been. More wary than he'd thought. Rinzler distantly approves.

It won't be enough, though. Not for him. He waits silently, running dim and quiet as he crouches above, just past sight. One hand tight on his disk, the other limbs braced. Coiled. The program's looking at the aperture now-when he turns his attention there more fully, or returns his focus to the half-rezzed wreckage, Rinzler will be ready.

He's always ready. But he knows stillness, patience, too.

[namesram]

Ram frowns. Something about the stillness doesn't feel right. He waits... then very casually lets his eyes wander, slowly turning his head away from the doubtful area.

Inside, his processes are racing, his fingers lightly tensing on the handlebars. Should've brought backup, he thinks -- but that would be no kind of welcome for an old friend.

[notglitching]

The program's hesitant. Unsure. His head turns slowly, further down the structure. Rinzler doesn't trust the motion.

But he hasn't looked up yet-not long, not at all in the right direction. Rinzler catches, too, the faint tension in the program's grip. His noise ticks, irritated within the confines of the helmet. He doesn't want to have to chase the other down.

And he is turned away.

Rinzler pushes off the narrow ledge, turning in the air to angle better, feet out, hands on his disks (joined, still inactive) as he drops silently on the program, trajectory a feetfirst impact to knock the other off the bike. Pin if he could.

[namesram]

Ram hears nothing. Sees nothing. Had all else been equal, the game would probably have been over the instant Rinzler fell away from the ledge. But the little program has one thing in particular going for him, the thing that saved his life in his first series of matches back in the old system when he'd just been a displaced actuarial program who liked helping people and doing math.

He can plan for the future.

If he had seen a flicker of motion in the alley, if it had been a program who wasn't there now, if the program did plan to strike when Ram was apparently distracted, there were only a few ways the event could go. So many fractions of a nanocycle forming the window of possibility between Ram turning away and the moment when, it could be reasoned, he might decide to move and change the trajectory. So many fractions for an attacker to commit to an action. So many for the action to reach his location. An instant in time when whatever happened would have started, but would have yet to connect. An instant which could, apart from all others, be marked as most dangerous.

Risk analysis. To Ram, it's second nature; the numbers were all tallied even before he looked away. They couldn't be exact; the future never was. But they could be pretty darned close.

The moment arrives. Slamming down on the handles, Ram revvs his lightcycle backwards, shooting away from the spot where a potential attack would be aimed. If he's wrong, no harm done; he's finished here anyway and there are other parts of the sector to check. But if he's right--

--and he is. And it's close. The silent shadow dropping on him is almost too close to miss. Ram's move had been just a crucial touch late. The hit wouldn't be dead-on, but unless he's spectacularly lucky, his gambit won't take him entirely out of reach.

:D YES.

[notglitching]

Backwards.

Rinzler expected a response. Even anticipated that the lightcycle might move-though he was still surprised by the immediacy of the other program's motion.

He didn't plan on it going backwards.

An instant to respond. He can fall, tuck, roll and throw his disks to bring it down. Low odds. Especially with the precise anticipation the other's shown so far for his attacks. He can rezz his own cycle, follow in pursuit. But Rinzler doesn't want to chase. He wants to win. Trap the other beneath his disks and get answers. Satisfaction.

And he's not completely out of reach.

Instead of tucking, rolling, Rinzler extends, body twisting in the air as a hand reaches out to plant between the handlebars. He grabs, turns, halfway flips as he maneuvers past the jerking motion of the cycle and the fall. A moment's hesitation, a slight shift in either direction, and he'd shatter a limb. Strike the ground headfirst, fall under-or in the running vehicle.

He lands atop the lightcycle's front wheel with perfect balance, disk flaring bright in his right hand as a corrupted rattle surges from the program's vocalizer.

[[ooc: much clip-watching has convinced me that a good part of the wheel's exterior is not the moving portion. If it's a problem, I can edit.]]

EEEEEEEEE :D

[namesram]

One moment, all's quiet. The next, Rinzler is right in his face.

Ram's eyes widen; a yell sticks in his throat. To most programs, a scenario like this is the stuff of nightmares. To this one, it's terrifying and confounding, but mostly just plain wrong. The enforcer's sudden presence is overpowering; under the clamor of the defense routines this program's other iterations have taught him, Ram can't help recognizing his attacker as (a) definitely Tron Rinzler and (b) one he hasn't met before, and he's choked by the incongruity between the snarling menace and his own unshakable knowledge of who this program truly is, beyond all the evidence of his senses, beyond everything that Clu could have done to him.

Rinzler's disc is active, and it's way too close. Ram can't block it if he still wants to control the vehicle. He has, however, been in a very similar situation before. It was a game then, and now it's not, but the foreknowledge of how the mass balances out lets him react faster than he might have otherwise. Not much faster. The increments were too small for that. But enough to slew the lightcycle sharply over in a knee-jerk reaction before Rinzler can strike, nearly trapping his own foot underneath as he tries to throw the other program off.

[[Yes, if I recall the moving part is on the inside except for a small part underneath.]]

[notglitching]

The lightcycle jerks sideways-for a moment, Rinzler thinks they're crashing, the other's lost control from shock or fear.

But no. It's deliberate. Beneath his own surprise and sudden struggle to stay on, he's impressed. Approving. Quick reactions, quick thinking-and retaining both in conditions that would panic most programs. This one would be a challenge on the Game Grid.

Rinzler likes a challenge.

The vehicle flattens with the turn, nearly parallelling the ground to the side. It's fast, sudden, and Rinzler has no chance of maintaining his balance, no good way to stay on the bike.

Good thing he hadn't planned to.

Rinzler shoves with his gripping hand, overcompensating for the sudden lurch. Legs lift, body repositioning to the side (now top) of the tipping lightcycle. As it tilts into the curve, hovers on the edge of stable motion... Rinzler kicks off. All his weight, all his mass, all the force he could muster, shoving down against the vehicle's upper half to force its steep turn into the ground.

His disk digs through the wheel for good measure as he launches off.

[namesram]

Oh, Ram's panicked all right. He's just had enough of that in his life that he can work with it, shove it aside and fight anyway.

Lose yourself, and you lose the game.

Of course, sometimes you lose anyway.

This game had been lost the moment Rinzler touched Ram's bike.

Rinzler's just that good.

The lightcycle glitches and shorts, faults cascading from the severed wheel, and the unit practically splashes as it hits the Grid, too damaged to even leave its baton behind. There's no room to compensate, no way to stabilize; Ram can't even roll as he hits.

It's lucky they're so close to the ground, actually. Impact resistance is not among his strengths.

He skids for a couple of yards, accompanied by about half the rapidly degrading remnants of his lightcycle, centrifugal force spinning him around a few times.

Disoriented, he no longer knows where Rinzler is.

[notglitching]

Rinzler lands a short distance off, rolling a couple times to absorb the impact-of the lightcycle's (former) speed, as much as the landing. He comes up quickly-is moving again in a flash, swift steps towards the fragmenting wreckage and its passenger. His disks split as he approaches, and he comes to a stop above the other program. The stirring form is at the edge of the street, half-curled for protection, just beginning to recover from the force of the crash. He seems more or less intact. Good.

Rinzler crouches, leans in, corrupted noise growling out over the humming of his disks in clear threat. Warning.

[namesram]

Warning taken.

Ram goes very still, only twisting his head around to see Rinzler more clearly.

There's nothing he could do from here, except kick out and try to take Rinzler by surprise. But he doesn't do that. Doesn't even hold it in reserve. Rinzler could have killed him without even coming over, but he hasn't. There's something else going on.

Ram lets himself go limp, visibly discarding any intention of fighting back, and looks up at Rinzler apprehensively.

Hope Ram speaks 'headtilt'... :D

[notglitching]

The rumble smooths out to regularity as the smaller program turns and stills. Rinzler shifts, edge fading slightly from his stance, though the disks stay bright with ready violence. If the other tries to pull something, he's ready. But he seems compliant enough, for now.

The ticking rattle is even, Rinzler still for a long moment. Then the black helmet tilts, nods briefly to the program below, jerks towards the half-destroyed structure not far away. Turns in faint question.

He wants an explanation.

Thanks to all the Rinzlers, he's become fluent! XD

[namesram]

The gesture isn't difficult to read, but... it just figures that Rinzler's first query would be that difficult to answer. Ram stares from the dark program to the construction site and back again, and lets out a frustrated breath.

"Look, if you just got here, you're not going to believe what that's all about without a whole lot of proof."