#notthatdillinger

(( @not-that-dillinger ))

The race was on. The bright beam of a User entering was the starting signal, and the finish line was none other than the Arcade entry point.

Ark had been traversing the City, keeping an eye out for Occupation trouble for her to handle, when the sky lit up burning bright white.

She froze in her tracks, taking what felt like too many moments to process the miracle that lay before her.

Ark changed directions to dash across buildings, jumping recklessly in order to keep as much speed as she could manage.

If the Occupation got there before her, it all would be lost.

With her energy racing through her circuits, it was hard to tell how much time she had taken to arrive at the front door.

But, despite the time crunch, she hesitated, pausing her hand right before touching the handle.

This was the most sacred of spots for the Users, to her knowledge, no program had ever entered, but she wouldn't be surprised if Flynn had convinced Tron to step foot inside.

She took a breath to steady herself, beg forgiveness from Flynn, and Alan-One, and whatever other Users were out there, and opened the door, quickly slipping inside and closing it behind her.

If she was lucky, the Occupation would be even more hesitant to enter, thus buying them precious time to try and find an escape. Her mine was already racing with potential exit routes.

...Not sure who should approach who, and this got really long, so leaving it at this...

—@not-that-dillinger]

Ultimately, how Ed ended up on the Grid was trivial. An anomaly he noticed, and couldn't stop thinking about, and, on a whim, went to go investigate.

It didn't take him long to find Flynn's creepy basement lab. It took him less time to find the digital world (he was without a doubt inside the computer, because that was most certainly the digitization laser he shot himself with).

It took them even less time to find him.

All he knew was that one moment he was standing in a dusty arcade, the next... he was still standing in the arcade, except as if it existed in a different dimension. In a different world.

And then two... programs? in glowing orange suits approached him, arrested him (for what, he wasn't certain), and put him on one of those ships from Flynn's game that he was never allowed to play as a kid. Space Paranoids, if he remembered correctly.

In any case, they put him on the ship, with several other programs. He'd already had a stressful day (thanks, Mackey), and was barely keeping it together when one of the other programs mentioned that they were all going to 'derezz.' Ed wasn't certain what that word meant, but from the context, he was convinced the guards were taking them to their deaths.

He was claustrophobic from the number of people programs on the ship, and he may have shot himself with a high-powered laser, but he certainly didn't want to die.

He couldn't breathe, he could barely form a thought from how his mind was reeling.

And then suddenly Ed could feel the lines code that made up the ship, and their restraints that held his feet in place. He had no idea what he did, but the next moment, their restraints were gone.

The woman next to him instantly attacked the guards with a staff he had no idea where she got it from. The ship descended into chaos as the other programs joined in the melee, and then in altitude when one of the programs destroyed the ship's pilot with the disc on their back.

Ed didn't have a disc, or a staff, and he certainly didn't know anything about piloting... anything, really, but nobody had yet realized that their ship was about to crash. So he carefully skirted the edge of their cabin to the controls.

A joystick. Really Flynn? Murder on his wrist. Joy of joys.

Ed... tried to keep them flying, but he had never been good at video games, and he really didn't have time to do much but pull up and lessen the impact when they crashed into the mountainside.

The next thing he knew, he was face down in the snowy, barren wasteland outside the city. When he rolled over to see his surroundings, the recognizer was a fair distance away (he see it clearly: blessedly, his glasses weren't broken in the crash). He must have been thrown out one of the broken windows in the crash. His ears rang, and Ed was certain he was both bleeding and concussed.

There was someone else lying in the snow, thankfully a distance away, but Ed had no idea what happened to the rest of the programs on the ship.

He knew he should get moving, in case any of the guards survived, but Ed needed a moment to recover before he attempted anything else.

((Ooooh, awesome, thank you so very much!))

Living on the Grid was hazardous nowadays, especially for a Renegade. Ark specialized in causing trouble for the Occupation, but knew that it was going to catch up with her one of these cycles.

She had been pulling another one of her self-assigned missions, when the sky had lit up in a way she hadn't seen in countless cycles.

A User was rezzing into the Grid.

Unfortunately, the beam of light distracted her long enough for the Occupation to catch up to her.

Badly outnumbered, Ark decided to save her strength for better odds.

She was loaded into a Recognizer, along with quite a few other programs.

A short time later, someone was loaded in next to her, someone with strange clothes she had never seen before. Was he the User? Or just a program with a quirky style? Was odd fashion a good enough reason for him to be arrested?

As she analyzed him, all of a sudden, him, her, and everyone else was free.

She took advantage of the surprise and chaos, and immediately leapt into action. Fortunately, they hadn't searched her too well in the confusion over the beacon, so her staff had remained with her.

Bolstered by the knowledge that there was likely a User among them, she fought hard, joined in by all the other prisoners on the ship.

The battle didn't last long before everything exploded.

Ark was flung out of the Recognizer and away from it, falling into the snow.

She wasn't out long, the cold stinging and bringing her back conscious, her circuits coming back online.

Using her staff to help, she pulled herself up and started looking around for any survivors.

When Do You Gaze At Your Soul Mate?

Ark's Result:

"when they're sleeping it's not just the way they're at rest. it's that they're at rest with you. it's not just that they're safe but that they feel safe enough to let you see them like this. it's trust and it's intimacy. and you're not sure you're ready for them to see the emotions in your eyes right now. they've been through enough. you both have. sometimes it scares you just how much you love them. it terrifies you that you feel happy as they lay there, eyes closed and hair a little messy. their features twitch and you know they're dreaming and it scares you because if you fall asleep too you won't have a nightmare tonight. you'll dream of them. or nothing at all. and either way it will make you need them more. and you're not supposed to need anyone but it's them. you want to hold them in your arms and never let go. you want to protect them but you know they want to protect you to. this is the kind of love you long for and it's the kind which will hurt if you lose it. but here you are anyway. it's too late now. you're glad it's too late to go back."

Aaaah, that fits Ark so well!

((Hee, thanks!

For the most part, Ark's quests would be big and bold - save the Grid or wherever else she's at. Or, on a smaller scale, solving problems that require going around (like the plot of the DS game where the player character is trying to solve the power issues that just popped up on the Grid). She doesn't know that Flynn is alive or on the Grid, so he wouldn't factor in until she found that out, and then she'd go searching for him.

Finding Tron and/or what happened to him is one she's worked on in her canon. And, trying to do the same for Beck would be another one.

If somebody asked her to, she would quest for smaller things - go to a city and pick something up and the like.

~~even more crack: shes Ed's furaona?~~

Ooc: omg a furry causes havoc beyond the internet, and Ed's fursona is a glowing, hippie sad-dog

((OH MY GOSH WOW THAT'S AMAZING THANK YOU FOR SENDING IN SUCH A NEAT OUTFIT!))

Ark's eyes widened in amazement as she looked over each piece of the outfit in awe. Each part was sparkly and beautiful and all came together in a package of multiple shining blues.

After she took some time to admire everything, she put the outfit on, taking another moment to gaze over each individual aspect.

The cloak was a delight, swishing as she wrapped it around her, finishing the shining ensemble.