Consciousness. Slowly. Gradually. He awakes to yellow lines on the ceiling of the room he is in. An unknown room. You’d hardly call it a room. More a closet. The smell of ozone can be faintly detected as the tiger rolls onto his side, and bumps into a wall. He’s confused as he quietly groans, slowly standing up. Last thing he remembers is working late in ENCOM’s labs at the remote site. Did he fall asleep? He looks up again. Dream?

“You’ve been out for a while. Welcome back to the land of the living friend.” a voice uttered behind him. The tiger looks over his shoulder to find himself practically muzzle to muzzle with a panther dressed in what could be best described as a rave. Blue lights run up and down his form as he fiddles with a disk just as blue as he is. In front of the leopard a wall of pale yellow gridded, light separates the two.

“Umm thanks.” Says the tiger as he runs a paw across his face, suddenly stopping. “What the hell?!” he utters. His arms, no his hands, no his entire dang body was covered in a suit with white glowing strips running across it. How did he get here? How did he get dressed like this? “Can I ask a question? What the hell is going on here? Who are you? What IS this place?” he asked.

“That’s more than one question.” Snerked the leopard, “You are the guest of the Central Control Daemon” the leopard said dryly as he waves a hand around his cage? “Who runs all of this” he sighed. “So who are you”

“Kellic. Just Kellic” the tiger answered.

“Well Kellic. Welcome to the games. What’s your function” the leopard asked.

“Games? What function?” Kellic asks questioningly as he eases himself down, back against the wall as the leopard snorts.

“Man your algorithms must have been all kinds of knocked around while you were processed.” He retorts as he taps the light wall with his disk. “Hello! What did you DO before you came here?”

“I did research and development” Kellic responded carefully. “Oh and I didn’t get your name either. What is your job?” He asked as he carefully inspected his arms. The leopard raised an eyebrow as he looked over the tiger again.

“R&D huh? And I haven’t given it yet. The name is Cert.” Says the panther as both look up as six armor clad troops clomp past on the walkway above. “My job was to, well to kick the CCD’s ass, and keep it from running rampant across the network. Not doing so hot on that job these days.” Cert says as he sighs, and sits down on a protrusion from the wall in his cell.

“And the games?” Kellic quietly asks.

“Heh. The games are a perverse cross between entertainment and CCD’s attempt, and quieting anyone who questions him.” The leopard shrugs. “They have been around since the time of the Master Control Program then discontinued when Tron came onto the scene, and shoved that old fat bastard back into an archive container. It had been pretty quiet around here until the users installed the Central Control Daemon. About 2 cycles ago he started expanding his control into other daemons. And well, here we are” Cert sighed again. “Look, Kellic. R&D programs are supposed to be pretty smart. So listen up. You are either going to learn fast, or you are going to die at these games. Simple as that. You….” Cern trails off as 2 guards clomp up to the tiger’s cell and open it up with a wave of a hand. Instantly the light wall falls.

“You. Move it program.” The guard orders.

“Good luck Kellic” mutters Cern.

“Thanks” whispers Kellic as he is lead away down the hall. They marched the tiger down, and around hallways until they arrive at a room with a countertop and a maimed fox standing behind it. Part of his face is pixelated beyond recognition. “Palms down on the table for encoding.” He orders as the tiger complies. A surge of power flows through Kellic as he passes out for a second. But literally for a second. As he awakes he finds himself confronted with a disc. A disk that glows an unearthly white like his suit. The tiger stands there transfixed for a second.

“Take it and leave. Oh and loose it and you die.” the fox growls.

He does so inspecting it, turning it over in his hands. The weight is more than his expected. This thing could really do some damage if he hit someone with it. As if reading his mind one of the guard’s mutters, “Don’t get any fancy ideas program. Save it for the game.” As if on cue the other guard lightly tases the tiger with his staff. “Move” he growls.

Without word or complaint the tiger continues down a long yellow hallway. Sounds of activities and cheers can be heard from the opposite side of the wall. They walk, and walk, and walk until finally they come to a door. Kellic is ordered to halt.

“This is your first game. Probably your last since Razor has taken a personal interest in you. Whoever you are. The game is simple. Don’t get derezzed.” The guard says as he chuckles. The door to the room slides up and open with a hiss. They shove him into the room as a door opens on the opposite side. A masked figure in black with deep green stripes stands in the other doorway. Hovering in the center of the room is a gigantic sphere with another smaller sphere inside it that must be 20 feet across. A ramp extents to the sphere and a portal inside opens.

“Move it.” orders the guard. Swallowing, Kellic proceeds into the sphere, as does his masked opponent.

As they both step into the sphere the ramps retract and the portals into the sphere slowly close. The tiger looks up. There is about 10 feet of space from his head to the center sphere. There is something different in here though. The gravity feels….off somehow. The portals into the sphere clamp shut with a thump. As if on cue the masked assailant leaps from the ground in a deftly executed spin. At the last second he releases his disk that goes flying. The disk bounces from outter sphere to inner sphere, again and again until it finally reaches the stunned tiger. Without thought he throws his own disk at the oncoming projectile, ricocheting the attackers projectile off into another direction as his own disc clatters to the surface of the inner sphere.
“Oh shit” the tiger exclaims as he looks up. How the hell is to expected to get his disc back. “Wait. Gravity. It’s wrong in here.” He thinks to himself as he starts running up along the outer sphere’s shell, jumps, and flies, or falls, or both onto the inner sphere. The tiger lands 2 feet from his disk on all fours.
Picking it up he slowly stands and looks across to the masked figure who has captured his disk as well.
Kellic smirks. “I always fancied myself a pretty good pinball player.” Said the tiger. “Let’s see how you do against this” yells the tiger as he charges the figure. He can feel a surge of energy as he jumps off the inner sphere, then the outer, then the inner again picking up speed until finally he lets his disc fly.

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Forgive the crappy writing. Its been something like almost 6 years since I've done it, and I'm WAY out of practice. I figured I should do SOMETHING for this artwork so I whipped this out today. The artwork hopefully makes up for it!! I've wanted to have my character tronized for a while now. This fantastic artwork was done by crimsoncanine and raggedyhatter bows Thank you guys!