❝ help i'm alive, my heart keeps beating like a hammer. ❞

[isomorphology]

Who: isomorphology, notglitching, and YOU!
What: Quorra is on the run from Rinzler, and she's left her PORTAL behind so no one knows where she is at. Unless she bumps into them.
Where: All over Promenade. Just tell us where you are.
When: 9/6+ (DAY or NIGHT - you pick!)
Warnings: TRON: Legacy spoilers if you haven't seen the movie! Possible out breaks of fights? Will

Comments

...assuming they don't go back to the clinic? Can rewrite if they do.

[notglitching]

[...This place is terribly wrong.

Rinzler can't help staring around as he strides forward. The trail led this way, he knows he's not far behind. But what is this? Some kind of infected zone? The strange cluttered structures, branching, splitting out dark green and brown. Something has gone horribly wrong with this place.

Not his directive.

The ISO is. Rinzler pauses, reaches down to check the trail once more. It's harder here, much harder, strange background energy in the branching objects and small moving things (gridbugs?) that fill the space. Are they alive?

Something else catches his attention as his scan spreads out around. A stronger spike-a presence.

Rinzler turns, hand reaching behind for his weapons. He's not alone.]

We can assume so!

[snowwhitesoul]

[Rukia has been a shinigami for decades. Fought and killed hollows, arrancar, and enemies that desired her dead more than anything. She didn't survive all of those battles by not paying attention. And this was her Place of Solace - she knew its sounds and the rhythm of its evenings. Something wasn't right. A flash of unnatural light between the bamboo shoots, motion. Her hand goes to the pommel of her sword and she casts out her senses...but nothing was there.

But she knew something had to be there. She wasn't hallucinating. Hand on blade, she creeps into the grove of trees and bamboo, eyes open for that flare of light again.]

[notglitching]

[The presence isn't far. Rinzler concentrates, darkens the glow of his circuitry to blackness, his disk dim and inactive in his grip. He slips sideways, behind some of the strange branching pillars, sensors alert. Ready. The scan gave him a direction, he just needs to-

There.

A user. Small. Armed. Creeping between the thin structures as she peers into the darkness. Rinzler hesitates. He can move on. Move away. Battle would mean delay-and while he knows he'll find the ISO eventually, Rinzler's tiring of this hunt more quickly than he'd thought.

His gaze fixes on the slim figure, hand curling around his weapon as frustration sparks viciously through his processing. He's tired of looking.

He still wants to fight.]

[snowwhitesoul]

[No sound. No movement. She wasn't seeing things, she knew this! But the silence and the complete void in her senses was confounding. Still, she wasn't going to relax until she'd at least investigated the area fully. Moving deeper into the woods, she keeps her ears perked for any sound of movement that was not hers.

Her breathing is slow and forcibly relaxed. Her steps are light. But she's not a tracker and the dim light of the woods makes seeing through the shadows hard. She'd have to get lucky to find the intruder.]

...and, private/encrypted text!

[notglitching]

[The user's looking, searching. But she won't find him, not like this. While he's unfamiliar with this terrain, the unnatural silence only augments his (considerable) skills. And Rinzler's always known how to stand out of the way.

Response. He can strike now. From cover, from concealment, slash or throw accurate, quick. Take her by surprise, hurt her, make her code spill across this tangled floor-

blood

Not code. His head turns, shoving back the conflict with a silent snarl of frustration. He's tired of this. He'll break her for it (their fault). But Clu didn't tell him to.

No. That's a lie. He had a different task, needed to work towards it, but users were always the enemy. Clu's words weren't holding him back, not truly, not enough. It was something else, a quiet insipid hesitation, some error of reasoning that weapon or no, in his way or no, stuttered and stalled at labeling her threat.

(not an enemy)

False. Everyone was an enemy in this place. Everyone attacked, tried to destroy him, got in his way...Nearly

Private/Encrypted Text

[snowwhitesoul]

[The beep of her PORTAL notifying her of the message nearly makes her jump. Cautiously, hand still on her blade, she reaches into the folds of her top to pull it out and flip it open. Her fingers press the buttons to pull up the message without looking, and when she does glance at it, its from the underside of her eyes, never really stopping her scan of the environment around her.

Her brows knit down for a moment, before taking a brand new intense search of the woods again.]

Rinzler. I'm afraid that information is none of your business.

[notglitching]

[Lie. The ISO's his target. Task. Prey.

The user didn't claim not to know.

The data would shorten his search.

Rinzler needs to take the data from her.

Fight.

New calculations flit through his processing, combat algorithms optimizing attack, angle, proximity. There's another factor pressing against the back of his processor, and after a moment, he realizes what it is. She's readying her blade. He's fought two users, in this place, who used swords primarily. For strikes, attacks, but also to channel... unexpected powers.

Users use blades for more than striking.

The weapon is dangerous.

Don't let her draw it.

Rinzler's close, but he slips closer. She had been trying to use the obstructions as cover; now they provide assistance to him. Location optimized, energy heightening speed, accuracy, the program strikes in a silent blur. Not at the user's back, head, vital regions. He needs to question her (can't kill her, can't let her die-all wrong). His disk flashes towards her weapon hand, flaring active in his grip at the instant of

[snowwhitesoul]

[Life and death can flash in the space of a heartbeat, faster, even, depending on the opponent. A petite goddess of death that had seen her fair share of it, had had opponents miles above her in power and skill strike her down in an eye blink. Before she could move, before she could think. One moment whole, the next dying.

Instinct and the cry of alarm from her blade, is what makes her turn at the last moment to face Rinzler and the fluorescent blur of a disk coming down for her hand. But she does not reach to pull her blade, there was no time. In a heartbeat, life and death flashed in her head, a moment's decision where she forwent her sword in favor of reaching into herself and drawing a memory, a tactile one scored upon her soul. Words, images, repetition and practice made it as familiar as breathing.

"Ye lord! Mask of flesh and bone, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Truth and temperance, upon this sinless wall of dreams unleash but slightly the wrath of your claws."A white-blue sphere of light coalesced in her

[notglitching]

[...She doesn't need the blade.

As disappointed as he is to find user privileges once again surpassing what they'd been in-Grid, Rinzler doesn't let it slow his reaction. He was striking for the hand-and now it's striking for him, moving rapidly to launch a sphere of energy towards his chest. Still. He's faced similar attacks like this before-from gridbugs and viruses, the blasts of lightjets. Even a hijacked Recognizer, once. Rinzler knows how to respond.

The striking disk twists, tilts slightly-not avoidance, but deflection. It interposes at an angle, designed to block the power surge, dissipate it harmlessly before contact. Rinzler was designed for battle, designed for this, and as the blue-white light contacts the edge of his weapon-

ERROR-

That. Is not. A gridbug.

The power flares against his disk-some deflecting, some fading to the air-but less than should. Bright pain sears up his arm, crackles against his circuitry. He loses the masking algorithm entirely, and all of his circuits relight, orange streaks and dots

[snowwhitesoul]

[In the dense shadows of the woods, the bright flash of kidou and the lurid glow of his circuitry dance and clash together in the explosion of the spell. In the collision, Rukia takes a few steps back hand flying back to finally draw Sode no Shirayuki. She expected him to follow up immediately on his pounce.

She didn't expect him to be able to resist the spell, much less avoid being thrown back by it.

She ducks the weapon swung at her face, the sub-sonic hum of the disc echoing in her ears as it burned a swath of over-bright light across her vision. It burned her retinas that close up, leaving spots in her vision. A stumble back again, the sound of the blade finally sliding free of the sheathe --

Then a muffled cry of pain as the other disk cuts shallow on her arm. The pain is sudden, but it's bracing. Adrenaline flies anew through her veins, two fingers coming up between them, and with a shout, she presses them to Rinzler's chest.]

Sho!

[Simple kinetic force propels him back and away from her, just enough distance to fully

[notglitching]

[He hears the blade come free just as his own weapon meets resistance. A slash, sensation not of breaking, but of ripping-and a cry of pain that twists through his code with satisfaction (discomfort). A hit.

Rinzler has time to catch a flash of motion, the free hand coming up, close-he braces for a strike-when light contact turns to a surge of force. He flies backwards, no chance to block-if he even could block this-slamming back into one of the taller growths. It's dizzying, but there's no true damage, and he shifts to rebalance, ready his stance for attack, defense, as he brings up his weapons-

...

He did hit.

Redness spreads across the user's wrist, her garb, a dark stain of color. Rinzler's gaze catches, and there's a skip, a freeze in his processing. He shakes it off-he's seen this on the others, knew it was coming, knew what she was. It shouldn't keep doing this to him.

Should never have affected him at all.

(ErrorBut she's leaping now, charging-with unexpected grace and power, a forceful strike down he has only nanocycles

[snowwhitesoul]

[Tch. He blocked it.

Rukia did not relish fighting, nor did she find any particular release with in violence. She was proud of her sword and her skills as a shinigami. She did not find violence distasteful when it was necessary, though. And this...creature had threatened a friend. That was enough for her to raise her sword.

Using his own arms as a brace for her weight, Rukia pushes off from that resistance and lands a few feet away from the prone Rinzler. Her hand extends again, fingers straight up and thumb tucked to her side.]

Bakudo 33: Sokatsui!

[notglitching]

[Rinzler does relish fighting. And violence, motion, the bright speed of derezz... it's the best release he has. Combat is the time he's most whole, nagging uncertainty and the twisting discomfort of errors overridden by motion. Action. Skill. Battle is the only time there's no conflict.

At least, that's how it's supposed to be.

His satisfaction at the opponent's skill-that was the kind of move he'd pull-shifts with unease as her free hand comes up. The injury's on the other side, but the redness splashed here too. It's grating. (Wrong.)

But she's speaking, gathering, and he stares up as the blue energy swells again, shooting forward in a sphere. But there's distance this time, if only a few steps, and Rinzler takes advantage. Blocking was only partially effective, even with his disks powered up to full. Instead, dodge

[snowwhitesoul]

[Rinzler would enjoy the Eleventh Division. Hell, Zaraki Kenpachi would have a field day with this guy. But never let it be said that Rukia had compunctions about straight forward viciousness when the battle called for it. She holds not delusions about style or grandeur or honor or sport. War is killing. War is death. Sometimes an ant among titans in power learns that when an opportunity presents itself, one must take it.

The kidou flashes and explodes on the ground, sending up dust and dirt through the narrow passages between the trees. In the camouflage, Rinzler is a ghostly blob of orange through the debris. Good, she needed time for this.

Holding her blade before her, tip facing the floor, and other hand on her wrist, Rukia taps into that icy reservoir of power, sword and shinigami singing together in that moment of unison as she spoke that familiar name.]

Mae, Sode no Shirayuki.

[The blade, from tip to the end of the ribbon that forms from the pommel cap, bleeds white. The air suddenly takes a dive in temperature, Rukia's

[notglitching]

[The ground explodes where he'd been standing, small particles of ground flying up to fill the air with haze. It's strange, unexpected-but Rinzler adapts, circuitry darkening once again as his disks dim to take advantage of the blackness, concealment.

But the user's speaking, and suddenly the air changes. A prickling edge against his circuits-not energy, not attack, but... cold.

He's only felt this kind of chill once that he can remember. Recently, in fact.

It ended poorly for him.

The program halts his forward motion, staring past concealment of darkness and particulate matter as the user's blade slashes sideways, clear opening. Invitation. Trap. He'd take the offer anyway, leap in disks flaring and rely on speed, skill, motion to overpower whatever she means to throw at him.

But these users are capable of moreHe can't forget that

[snowwhitesoul]

[Damnit, it was worth a try.

The shining white blade flicks out, knocking away the flying disk in the air, sending it bouncing around through the trees. Her opponent had hidden himself again, so Rukia calms her breathing, casting her senses out. Listening instead of just trying to ferret him out with her reiatsu sense. Who or whatever Rinzler was, he was an experienced combatant. She couldn't hide herself like he did. But she couldn't afford to let him keep vanishing on her.

So Rukia bends down and puts her hands on the ground. A red circle forms on the ground between them, glowing brighter and brighter, then --]

Bakudō # 21. Sekienton!

[The grove, the trees, everything within several yards around her explodes in heavy red smoke. Under the veil, Rukia attempts to turn and bolt for the open field nearby.]