Reunion

[kefka]

[glow=gray,2,300]Smack! Smack! Smack!

As he hammered away at the machine with his morningstar, his magic coming back, Zolapaz was readying a spell the moment just before Zack called out for new instruction. He nodded, completely ignoring the fact Heartless were scaling the sides of this contraption and making their way for him. He simply hopped off and began hovering; if he could be surprised remembering this bit of knowledge, he would have shown it.

He glided down back into the control room where Zack would be, still fending off the creatures. Landing hard like a tiny comet, hurling three Shadows into a wall on impact, the Nobody stated quite simply he was ready for his next order.[/glow]

[Cloud]

Zack was surprised, but thankful at Zolapaz's sudden demonstration of a new skill. It knocked the heartless back a bit, which granted them the time they needed. "Alright!" he said, pumping a fist before turning to the console once more, holding down the button to call out to Leon.

"Yo, big guy! We're ready and waiting! Beam us up!" he said, then turned in place to face the digitizer. With a smirk, he nudged Zola a bit as he did. "Ready to get your binary on?" he said jokingly, trying to get the man to crack a smirk at the very least. It was futile, of course, but that wouldn't stop the over-optimistic Zack.

Inside, Tron would be busy typing in the protocols, getting the digitizer primed. Within moments, he would nod to Leon. "Running executable!" he said, hitting the button with vigor. The machine would fire, seperating Zack and Zola into seperate pixels before scanning them in bit-by-bit. It would leave nothing behind as it drew them into the computer world...

Zack blinked a bit as he made landfall, looking around the strange world he now found himself in. "Woooahh..." he said, taking in all the amazing vector-graphic glory. Looking off, he spotted the game grid in the distance and a death-match of the speeder bikes. "NO FRIGGIN' WAY!" he called out, running over to the edge of the USB port, looking excited. "I know that game! I used to be king of the bikes!!" he called out enthusiastically.

"Okay, after this is over, I totally gotta take a round!" he said, then turned to the others, finally taking note of their strange garb and by extension, his own blue-glowing outfit. "Woah!" he said again, taking it in. "Nice! I look flat-out futuristic!" Pumping a fist, he grinned widely. "Alright! Let's kick some virus butt!" he said, pulling out his buster sword.

"Which way??"

[Secondary Characters]

Leon grinned as Zack and his strange accomplice made their way into the world of Tron. He nodded as Zack exclaimed his excitement about the speeder bikes, the USB dock, and even his futuristic clothing. But the time for celebrations could come later. They had a battle coming up, and they'd need every ounce of concentration to get out of it alive and well.

"This way," He said, motioning to the map that Tron had pulled up earlier. "There's a clear path through to the middle. Well...not exactly clear, but...you get the idea. Once we get into the hallways, we'll need to be quick and vigilant. We don't know how intelligent this thing is, only that it's taken over our entire security network thus far. When we get it flushed out, we can re-engage and beat back the Heartless from Radiant Garden!"

He nodded firmly to Tron, motioning for Zack and his friend to follow him as well. He began to walk down the corridor, careful to avoid the taint of the virus clinging to the walls. His pace was brisk, and his eyes scanned every corner, his hand never too far away from the hilt of his trusty Gunblade...

[Cloud]

Tron nodded at Leon's assessment, then shrunk down the map for easy portability. Turning in the direction of their goal, he began running. "The broadband connection is this way!" he called behind, as the others began to follow.

The hallways were filled with various heartless, as well as the odd binome here and there. Tron would throw his datadisk and Zack would come swooping in with BusterSword in hand. The heartless came at them from all sides; front, back, sides, and from above. They cut them down as best they could, but numbers demanded that they keep moving.

The hall at first narrowed, making the streams of heartless easier to handle, but it would begin to widen again shortly afterwards. "C'mon! How many more!!" Zack would call out, hacking down enemies as they charged forward.

"Not much further! I can see the datastream now!" Tron responded, pointing up at a laser-straight line of light with pulses of data running past them as they ran. "Once we reach the modem, we can re-route the data and ride it back to the server program at central point of the mainframe!"

"I'm not gonna pretend to know what that means, just go!" Zack called. The room became a perfect circle, with several beams of light converging at center and riding downward into a single terminal. Tron ran up to it and began to type in data while the others took care of incoming heartless.

"I need a moment or two to-"

"Stop talking about it and DO it!"

"...affirmative..."

[Secondary Characters]

Leon burst into the room right after Zack, his strange friend, and Tron. He immediately began to fight the Heartless, slamming into them and using his body and the flat of his blade like a battering ram. He scattered them back the way they had come, finishing them off with a click of the trigger and a powerful, bursting slash if they came too close, just like he was in the hallway.

"Ugh...hurry up with that damn security system!" Leon yelled as Tron began to input co-ordinates and logistics data. He noticed a group of heartless making their way towards Tron, and he raced forwards to help him. Pumping his legs, he suddenly felt them give way beneath him as a Heartless latched on, flinging Leon into the air.

His sword clattering a few feet away, Leon looked up helplessly as Tron was about to be overwhelmed. Then he noticed the datadisk laying next to him. Tron must've dropped it in his panic! Good thing, cause Leon needed a weapon, and soon. He picked it up, studying the swirling blue designs and digital patterns.

"It cant be that hard...right?" He let fly the disk, watching as it curved a smooth arc right in front of Tron's eyes, slamming into several heartless and reducing them to dark pixels that dissipated rapidly. He nodded firmly, getting up and sliding forward. He slammed his boot down, flipping his sword into the air and twisting at the last moment to grab it.

Twirling his body with the precision of a trained fighter, Leon brought himself around to cleave two Heartless in half, then set to work covering the other side of the room opposite from Zack. His body was just heating up, and he had plenty of fight left in him. He called to the enemy, taunting them away from Tron so he could work.

"Come on, you freakish bastards...Come get some!"

[Cloud]

"It's done!" Tron called out, then waved for everyone to gather. He pointed upwards toward a few incoming balls of light. "When they hit the hub, grab them and hold on!!" he demanded, and just as he finished, one would hit. He reached out with both hands and grasped the orb, which rebounded off the terminal and streaked across the lines back upward and in a new direction which none of the other light balls had gone before.

Zack nodded firmly. "You got it, T-man!" he called, then strapped the Buster Sword to his back. He turned and ran toward the terminal, watching overhead as another orb of light was swiftly incoming. As he ran past, he playfully punched Zola on the shoulder. "Last one in's a rotten egg!" he said, then jumped up to snag the ball just in time, bouncing off the terminal and into the air!

That left two heroes, a room of heartless, and another incoming orb...

[Secondary Characters]

Leon continued to slash at the Heartless as the swarmed into the room, nodding to Tron as he took the ball and sped off. Watching Zack grab the second ball, he noticed a third coming down the lines. He looked at Zola, pointing with his thumb towards the ball.

"Go! I'll hold them off, then make my escape! Make sure that Zack gets back safely so he can start to fight off the Heartless! Tell him I'll be right there!"

He continued to fight the Heartless, his back pressed against the console briefly before he clicked the trigger of his blade, using a powerful slash to clear a wide area before Zola. He motioned one last time towards the ball, cannon-diving himself into the middle of the Heartless Horde and fighting...

[kefka]

[glow=gray,2,300]"..."Kefka's Nobody set to work with his latest command, using his recharged power to set off in a sort of gliding motion down the open pathway, snatching the last of the required items and doing as he was told.

Ensure the safety of Zack while the path is cleared. "Got it," he said, throwing pillar after pillar of raging hot firaga spells at oncoming Heartless, tossing in a few Thungagas here and there.

"This tedious endeavor..." he whispered. "You'd best hurry up before things get worse."[/glow]

[Secondary Characters]

The balls of light would streak across the laser-straight connection leading into the heart of the mainframe, held tightly by three of the four warriors. They were moving at roughly the speed of light, but to them it was just one bare-knuckled ride through cyberspace. Soon, all three would be dropped off in a centralized hub, which was comprised of a circular, dark room.

"Where's Leon??" Zack would call out, looking around them as he stood from the crouching position the impact of their landing had forced him to take. He put his hands on his hips, and looked to Zola who would be landing shortly behind him. "Wasn't he with you?" he asked.

Tron would be standing nearby, clutching his datadisk. "Something is not right..." he muttered, looking to the others. "Something should be happening. We're in the mainframe, and I can sense the presence of the virus, but..."

That was when they heard footsteps. Tron and Zack would immediately take to their weapons as a figure began to walk into the light that illuminated only the very center of the room. From all appearances... it was Leon!

"Whoah, hey... drop the gear, alright?" he said in his strange "I don't really care, but secretly I do" tone. A slight smile would indicate that he was amused by what he saw. "I missed my landing... So this is the mainframe?" he asked, but there was something... off...

Where was his gunblade?

[Secondary Characters]

Leon slammed into the ball of Heartless, his sword flashing every which way as he clicked the trigger, sending beasts into Oblivion with each cleave of his mighty Gunblade. Sweat streamed off of his face as he parried attacks, and he screamed out in fury, clicking the sword one last time as power surged through him.

Sweeping in a wide circle, his sword emitted a flash of energy and light, decimating a wide portion of the Heartless. Looking over his shoulder, he saw the strange, emotionless partner of Zack grab a ball and be whisked off into the ether. Another ball was coming down the chute, and he laughed in relief, slowly backtracing while eliminating Heartless.

One of them caught him off guard, and he was hit in the chest by a clawed fist. He grunted, sliding across the room to slam into the console where Tron was a few minutes ago. He flipped up neatly through the air, grabbing onto the sphere and yelling loudly at the Heartless in triumph as he was pulled away.

A few seconds later, he realized he was at the mainframe, and he grinned in relief to see Tron, Zack, and the strange man there. But as he watched, someone stepped out of the shadows...it was him! He blinked a few times in confusion, steeling himself for a quiet landing to take out his...what was that thing, anyway?

But, as luck would have it, the ball of light began to fizzle and blink in and out. Several times he almost fell, keeping himself quiet. With a last fizzling wink, the ball extinguished itself as he entered the mainframe, and he fell the last ten or so feet, yelling as he slammed into the ground.

Rolling to keep himself from being injured, his sword stuck firmly into the ground next to him as he looked up at Tron and Zack. He was in front of himself, about ten paces away, his sword in between them. He grunted, standing to his feet and staring his copy in the eye.

"So much for a quiet landing..." he muttered, tensing his body to race after his weapon...

[Secondary Characters]

TWO Leon's??? Both Tron and Zack would be a bit confused by this, looking between the one who had arrived and the doppleganger who had shown himself earlier. Due to the confusion, the gunblade that would seperate them now laid between the two of them, equidistant and therefore impartial. There was no way to tell which Leon was THEIR Leon!!

Zack shook his head a bit, reaching up to scratch in his mess of spiked black hair. "Holy similiar... Did someone copy-paste or something???" he asked no one in particular, looking back to Tron for answers, however.

Tron's eyes would narrow, and he'd let out a soft curse which couldn't really be made out. "I had forgotten... our virus... is a Trojan Horse! One of these two is the villain!" he said, charging his datadisk in his hands. "Which of you is the true Leon! Speak!!" he demanded.

"Don't you guys know me yet??" demanded the one Leon who had appeared first. Lucky for him that the gunblade had not been seen in the other's hand. Otherwise this deception would be over before it began. Holding a hand up to himself, he spoke strongly and gestured with his other. "I'm the real Leon, of course! We came here to wipe out a virus right? Well, there he is!" he pointed at the other Leon now. "C'mon! Let's delete this virus and restore the system!"

Little did this particular bug in the program know... it had already made a critical error. One of them would have to figure out what THE other Leon still possesseD whIch the falSe one did not Know of.

[Secondary Characters]

Leon coughed once. This guy was impersonating him! He took a step forward, towards the Gunblade, but didn't make his movements too obvious. If this phony caught onto him, it'd be a race to get the sword, then a battle to the death! And Leon wasn't much for fighting himself, when he'd have to anticipate every move he would make...

He racked his brain for an answer, some way to let them know that this was the real deal. He had it! He cleared his throat, calmly lifting up his hands to show they were empty, then looking over to Tron and Zack.

"I could waste my time trying to tell you that I'm the real deal, the genuine article, the big cheese, blah blah blah. But I have one thing that he doesn't...the key to destroying him."

Leon reached inside his pocket with one fluid motion, pulling the disk out and lobbing it across the room to Tron, while in the same instant making a break for the Gunblade. If he could just get to it in time...

[Cloud]

That was the clue they needed. The disk came flying, and Tron reached up to snatch it. He looked at it a second before seeing the two Leons make a break for the gunblade. A throw of his datadisk later, he made contact with the first Leon, knocking him back. "That's our target!" he cried out, pointing. "That's the Trojan Horse!"

Zack nodded, gripping his sword. "Got it!" he yelled, then ran forward for an attack.

The felled Leon landed hard into a roll, getting hurt badly enough to see sparks flying from where the disk hit him. He growled, standing up slowly and looking over to the heroes. One of them was already attacking. Jig was up. "Fools..." he muttered, his voice suddenly several octaves lower. He looked to them, the image of Leon fizzling away to reveal... a very different visage.



The purplish, reptilian-skinned virus watched as Zack charged forward, and as the sword came swinging his way, his hand reached out and stopped the assault, the other rushing up to wrap around the man's neck and lift him off his feet. He glared at him, though chuckling lightly. "I knew someone like you once..." he muttered, his grip tightening. "I hated him too!" he said, sinking the sharpened tips of his fingers into the soft flesh of Zack's neck, attempting to infect him with viral cells.

As Zack choked and twitched, trying to fight off the infection, the creature spoke yet more. "Hear my name and tremble... I am Megabyte! And this Mainframe is MINE!"

[Secondary Characters]

Leon sighed as he pulled the datadisk out and Tron caught it. He gave himself a silent pat on the back, then raced forward to grab his Gunblade the instant Zack charged forward. Leon spun, preparing to engage his copy, then stopped dead in his tracks as he looked upon the twisted, blue visage in front of him.

"No!" he cried out, as the form grabbed Zack by the throat and easily lifted him.

"...Megabyte, and THIS MAINFRAME is mine!" Leon charged forward, swinging his blade in a horizontal slash at Megabyte, attempting to sever the lifted appendage and free Zack before the virus got a hold of his immune system, or worse...

[Cloud]

The attack would strike true right on the crook of Megabyte's arm, causing it to fall uselessly away while the virus stumbled back angrily, grasping at the bleeding stump where it used to be attached. Zack would fall back as well, but holding has his neck and coughing loudly due to viral infection. He was shivering, obviously in severe pain.

Tron would spot this and run over to the fallen hero, knealing down and using his datadisk as a transfer device. "Hold still, I'm running an antivirus program... it's going to take a second or two..." he said to Zack before looking over his shoulder to Zolapaz and Leon. "Deal with the virus while I handle this! Don't let him out of your sight, or he could blend with the environment!!"

Prophetic, that was... As the others focused on Zack's pain, Megabyte had regenerated his arm and was now slinking backward into the shadows. Within seconds, he disappeared into them, melding and becoming one with the darkness. He was a stealthy monster, and the second Tron made the call to watch him, he was gone. He chuckled darkly, the echo of the Mainframe masking his location...

Until he burst from the darkness behind Zolapaz and thrust a tri-pronged claw at his back, attempting to skewer his heart!