Greetings, programs!

Tron's repurposing into Rinzler has always facinated me, especially after I watched the original Tron movie and got to know Tron a lot better. Just how did this powerful fighter become broken down into Clu's mindless enforcer? How did Clu do it?

Ok, I know several people have done fics on Tron's reprogramming already, but I found a picture on Deviantart which I found... Haunting to say the least. In any case, it inspired me to write my own version of the fateful scene, based (roughly) on the picture. I was planning to do one anyway, but the picture just made me do it sooner and with something to go by.

The picture is called "Your name is Rinzler, and you belong to me" by Luthie13 and I recommend you looking at it either before or after reading this fic so you can see what I was building around.

Disclamer: I don't own Tron, Clu or the image this fic is incpired by.

System reboot commencing…

A dull throbbing penetrated through the darkness of standby as the security program slowly began to regain awareness.

System reboot at 43.6%…

Automatically, his scans raced through his system, checking for any anomalies, anything that might have gone wrong since the last scan. They found nothing abnormal. But something was wrong.

System reboot at 78.4%…

The program was becoming dimly aware of a light ache in his arms, As his memory files reopened, he quickly ran through them to try and remember what had happened that had caused him to shut down.

System reboot at 96.7%…

"Flynn, go!" The memory shot through his circuits like a light disk to the chest, Clu. He had finally snapped and turned against his User, betraying him and all that he believed in. He had attacked them with the help of his Black Guards. Memories reopened of the fight that had ensured. The security program had managed to derezz all of the guards before turning and finding Clu towering over Flynn, disk activated and in hand. The ache in his arms grew stronger.

System reboot complete.

Tron's blue eyes snapped open. Instantly, his vision sensors took in the surroundings. A dark room, the walls of which he couldn't see. The only light came from his own white circuits, a small panel that glowed faintly yellow on the wall, illuminating what could be one side of a door, an orange glow on either side of him, a blue glow below him and a yellow and blue glow behind him. He tried to turn to identify the source of the glow behind him, but found that he couldn't move. Looking down, he found his feet caught in a light clamp and his arms trapped out to the side of him in a wide, upside down V shape, his hands in some kind of ring that emitted the orange glow and sent small lines of electricity into his hands. Tron pulled one of his hands towards him, trying to free it and instantly the voltage of the electricity increased and he bit back a small hiss as his pain receptors registered the shock. Clearly there was no escaping these bonds. He felt insecure. Helpless and unable to move, he was dangerously vulnerable; a feeling which he hated. No doubt this was Clu's doing. He remembered the other program's disk coming towards him as he lay helpless on the ground… And then nothing. Blackness until he rebooted here. Why hadn't he been derezzed? If Clu had hit him at point blank with his disk like that then surely…

Disk.

The familiar weight of it was gone from his back. Where was his identity disk? Had he dropped it whilst on standby mode or had Clu taken it from him when he was brought to this User forsaken place?

'Ah, Tron. You're awake.' The familiar voice came from behind him and for a nanocycle, Tron dared to hope that it was Flynn's. But no. The Creator could never sound that cold. Craning his neck to look behind him, Tron followed the yellow glow as it grew brighter until the betrayer was in view. Clu's circuits were the same poisonous yellow they had been during the attack, illuminating his face; so like that of Flynn's, and yet so different in the sense that none of the kindness and liveliness Flynn radiated shone in Clu's face. He was cold, unforgiving and focused on something in his hands which Tron couldn't quite make out.

'Clu,' he said, his voice hoarse. 'What have you done?' Clu looked up to his captive for a moment, then back down to his hands.

'Something which should've been done a long time ago,' he replied smoothly.

'How am I still rezzed?'

'I deactivated my disk at the last nanocycle, but still struck you with enough force to knock you out.'

'Why?'

'You're more use to me functioning than derezzed.' For some reason, that made Tron's circuits run cold. He didn't even want to calculate what the rogue program had in store for him.

'You betrayed Flynn,' he said. 'He is your User, how could you do this?' Clu smiled coldly and stepped around the trapped program until he was standing in front of him.

'I am the system administrator,' he stated. 'My purpose, in case you had forgotten, is to create the perfect system. I couldn't do so whilst Flynn was there. He was making things imperfect.'

'He is doing no such thing,' Tron declared.

'He sees the Isomorphic Algorithms as a miracle.'

'They are, why can't you see that?'

'Why can't you see that they are bringing danger to the Grid?'

'You have no proof that the rise in Gridbug attacks is linked to the ISOs.' The two programs glared at each other. Determined blue eyes on cold grey. After a moment, Tron's eyes were drawn to the soft blue glow illuminating Clu's harsh features from below. In the system administrator's hands, emitting the soft blue and white glow was an identity disk. Tron could tell from the slight tug in his coding he felt towards it that it was his.

And it was activated.

Tron's face was pixelated at the centre and streams of his code bloomed outwards all around it. Clu's attention turned back to the disk and as their gazes raked over the exposed coding, Tron noticed something was wrong. His code had been changed. Here and there were streams of yellow, orange and red where once there had only been blue. And the patches were growing.

'What are you doing?' he asked, eyeing his changing code warily. Clu looked up, away from the disk, to his former friend.

'Merely perfecting some errors,' he replied easily, but Tron sensed a deeper meaning behind his words and as he watched Clu take another stand of code and manipulate it, the truth suddenly crashed down onto him.

'No…' The word was a whisper, horrified and full of dread. Clu didn't look up, but a small smile spread across his lips. Another line of his code was replaced with a new, orange one.

'No, no you can't!' Tron exclaimed. 'You can't reprogram me!'

'Oh, but I can, Tron. Flynn gave me this power…'

'He gave you that ability to help others,' Tron cut him off furiously. 'To regenerate the injured and undo damage. Not this!'

'What's the difference?' Clu's voice was ever calm. 'I'm undoing the damage that has been programmed into you since the start. Your misguided love for the Users.' His voice twisted into hate as he practically spat the final word.

'Alan-1 made no errors when he programmed me,' Tron snarled angrily. 'Nor did Flynn during my upgrades. I fight for the Users. I always have and I always will, you can't change that.'

'Ah, but you see, Tron; I can. And I will. As soon as I have finished reprogramming you, you will come to see the truth. The truth that Users are nothing. They're not worth fighting for, they are imperfections just like the ISOs. And together, we shall eradicate them both from the Grid.' Cold fear began to wind its way through Tron's circuits. The ISOs. Clu had never liked them, but now he was talking about… Implying…

'Genocide,' he hissed. 'You would derezz them all?'

'No. No, I wouldn't,' Clu replied as another segment of Tron's coding flickered and turned orange. 'But you will.'

'Never!'

'You won't have a choice. And even if you did, you would see the need for their extinction. They are imperfect, a virus, a disease.'

'That's not true.'

'Soon you will know different and I will have the best security program ever written fighting at my side.'

'I will never fight for you!'

'You say that now, old friend.' Tron pulled desperately at his restraints again, but was only rewarded with an electric shock again.

'Clu,' he begged in a last, desperate effort to make the taller program see sense. His code, spread out around his disk was almost completely orange. 'Clu, please. Think about what you're doing. I…'

'Oh, I have,' Clu replied darkly. 'I have thought about it long and hard. You have no idea how many cycles it took me to plan this rise to perfection.'

'Don't do this.'

'Look at this! The mighty Tron, defender of the Users and the Grid reduced to begging! How you have fallen. You failed your purpose, you couldn't protect the precious User.'

'Flynn escaped.'

'Did he?' Clu leaned closer to the captive program and looked him straight in the eyes. 'How do you know?'

'I saw him,' Tron shot back adamantly, meeting Clu's gaze determinedly.

'We have captured him.'

'No…'

'Soon, I will derezz him.'

'You lie!'

'You have no proof.' Tron fell silent. Had Flynn been captured? No. No, he had escaped, he must have. Somehow, he would know if his friend had been derezzed. He would just know.

'Perfect.' Clu's whisper brought snapped Tron out of his thought process just in time to see a now completely orange code fold up into his identity disk. After a nanocycle, the inner blue ring of light flickered and became orange. Clu stepped towards him.

'Clu, don't…'

'Save your voice, Tron,' Clue cut him off. 'I have a feeling you'll need it as you're not the type to go down without a fight. But you will go down, Tron. No matter how long it takes.' He stepped around the security program and out of his sight. Tron gritted his teeth. He had never wanted to go against his programming before, nor had he met anyone who had. He had no idea if he would be able to resist the new commands Clu had written into his code, but by the Users, he would try.

'When the process starts,' Clu said calmly. 'try not to resist. It will only make it more painful.'

'Go derezz alone in the Outlands,' Tron snarled. 'I fight for the Users!'

'Not for long,' Clu replied softly. Then he placed the disk on the dock on Tron's back and snapped it into place.

Tron almost screamed and nearly bit his tongue off to stop the noise escaping as the new code ripped through his system like it was tearing him apart. He threw up every defence, every firewall he had, desperately trying to beat the invading code back… But it was so strong! He had never felt a force so powerful in his existence. Never had to fight so hard to win. But bit by agonising bit, the warped code was breaking through his walls. A choked gasp escaped his throat as a tendril forced its way into his system, bringing with it a whole new wave of pain.

Wrong, wrong! It felt so wrong, just this single strand of code rewriting parts of him. He fought against it, trying to push it back, but in doing so, a second line wound its way into his system.

No! No, I will not give up! he screamed internally. But his energy levels were low as it was and were waning continuously. He lost all track of time as the battle for who he was raged on inside him. Nanocycles, microcycles and cycles all became meaningless to him. The internal war seemed endless.

I am Tron. I fight for the Users. Kevin Flynn is my friend, he chanted over and over like a mantra as he pushed against the invading code.

I am Tron. I fight for the Users. Kevin Flynn is my…

Enemy.

No! Friend! He's my friend!

He betrayed me.

Flynn would never betray me! He was growing weaker. Clu's new code was slowly wearing him down, but he had to keep fighting. He had to!

'Let go, Tron,' Clu's calm voice cut through the never ending agony. 'It will be so much easier if you just stop resisting.'

'Never!' Tron gasped, forcing the word out in defiance.

'You will give in eventually. No one can resist their own code.'

'It's not mine!'

'It is. It's your new code. Your perfect code.' Tron let out a half gasp, half scream as more code lines broke through his defences.

Kevin Flynn is the enemy. I obey Clu.

That's not true! Users! I fight for…

Clu.

No!

Why should I keep fighting?

I have to!

Clu's right, I'm only prolonging this agony.

I have to win!

.

Clu watched silently as Tron battled with the unseen code. His circuits were flickering from white to orange more and more often. Soon, he would surrender to the code and Clu's perfect creation would be complete.

.

Tron was losing. His defences were becoming weaker and weaker by the nanocycle despite his attempts to keep them strong. More of the code was leaking through, warping his system, changing him. He had never felt so scared in his whole existence. Many of his thoughts were no longer his own.

Yes they were. This was who he was.

New thoughts invaded his mind, reshaping his perspective.

Helping him.

A small moan emanated from the back of his throat.

'That's it,' Clu said encouragingly as he watched patiently. 'You're almost there.' Tron's circuits were now almost always orange, only flickering back to their original white every few nanocycles. Clu rested one hand on the disk which was causing so much trouble and the other on the breaking program's shoulder.

It was this touch, this single, simple gesture that finally broke him. In that split moment of distraction, the code shattered Tron's defences and tore through him like a flood.

A great scream of pure agony was ripped from the program's throat. He cried out desperately for Flynn, his friend and for Alan-1, his User and Creator. But neither of them could hear him and so no one came to help and the violating code continued to rage through him. Everything that he was or ever had been was being rewritten. Warped. Destroyed. Changed.

Perfected.

He no longer had the strength to fight, nor the will to hold back Clu's reprogrammed code. Tron was being destroyed from the inside.

And Clu smiled.

At last, the scream echoed into silence. The four squares on the program's chest flickered faintly white one last time, then became orange. Permanently. An orange light filled the program's once blue eyes as his expression slipped into an empty gaze. Blank. New. He had no name. He had no self. The reprogramming was complete. Tron was no more.

Clu patted the program's shoulder once, then stepped back and around to face him, taking in his creation. The lifeless orange eyes stared unblinking at nothing.

'Look at me,' Clu commanded. The eyes turned down to lock with his. Perfect. For a microcycle, they stood locked there, staring at each other. One broken and empty, the other admiring and triumphant.

'Your name is Rinzler,' Clu said, breaking the silence. 'You belong to me and you will obey my every command.'

'My name is Rinzler,' the program repeated obediently. 'I belong to you and I will obey your every command.' Clu nodded, his eyes lit with cold satisfaction. Reaching across to one of the rings that held the program's hands trapped, Clu pressed a button which instantly deactivated the light clamp and electrical field, freeing him from immobility. Rinzler's hands dropped to his sides, but slightly away from his body, ready. Clu smiled in satisfaction. His new fighter was exceeding expectations and showing promise already.

'Identify,' Clu commanded.

'Designation: Rinzler,' came the instant reply.

'What is your purpose?'

'To serve Clu and follow all orders from Clu.'

'Perfect,' Clue breathed. Victory was his. He had cast out the old Creator, Flynn, and repurposed the strongest program on the Grid to become his obedient follower. He was unstoppable.

'Rinzler.' The program snapped to attention without a nanocycle's hesitation. Clu smiled and nodded. 'Follow me.' He turned and walked towards the wall where he pressed his hand against the pad next to the door. A glow appeared around the door and it shimmered and disappeared. Clu stepped through into a corridor and Rinzler followed.

'Tell me, Rinzler,' Clu said as he lead the way down the hall. 'What do you think of the Users?'

'They are tyrants,' Rinzler replied. 'They create us, only to undo what we try so hard to achieve, betraying us and our purpose. They should not be allowed onto the Grid.'

'And the ISOs?'

'Mistakes. A virus. They must be eradicated in order for the perfect system to be completed.'

'Excellent. Then you have your first order: Destroy all the ISOs. Derezz every single one of them.'

'I will derezz all the ISOs,' Rinzler agreed. 'There will not be a single one left.'

Clu stopped walking and turned to face the repurposed program. Rinzler instantly fell still and looked to his master, waiting. Clu reached behind Rinzler and flicked a control on the back of his neck which activated the black helmet around his head. Sleek and dark with a blacked out visor so Rinzler could see out, but no one could see in. His old identity had to be kept silent.

Helmet in place, Clu continued walking down the hall with Rinzler right behind him. Eventually, they came to the main room where an identity disk, devoid of its bearer lay on the table. Clu picked it up. The inner circle was orange, just as Rinzler's was and it had belong to one of the Black Guards who had been derezzed by Tron during the battle in which Flynn had escaped. Tron had then gone on to use this disk as well as his own to fight off the remaining guards and Clu had been impressed with how swiftly he adapted to handling two weapons instead of just one. He held the disk out to Rinzler who took it and inspected it.

'You are my first step to perfection, Rinzler,' Clu said, placing his hand on the other program's shoulder. 'You must be my enforcer, seeking out all who oppose me. Use this disk as well as your own to fight and you will be unbeatable.' Rinzler turned the disk over in his hand, then reached back and took out his own disk. After a moment of inspection, he joined the two together, back to back and docked them both in place on his back again.

'I am counting on you to follow my orders so that we may rid imperfection from the Grid,' Clu continued. A low rumble penetrated the air as a sound that was cross between a growl and a purr was emitted from Rinzler. A sound which would soon be known to strike terror into any program who heard it. 'Can I trust you?'

'I will always follow you,' Rinzler replied as the first hints of the bloodlust that would accompany him for many cycles to come entered his orange eyes, hidden behind his helmet.

'I fight for Clu.'

I must admit, writing this made me rather shaky uneasy for the next few days (I wrote it about a week ago). Once again, the characters took over the pen and wrote out the story themselves. Rinzler in particular was very adamant to get his part in. Well it's out there now so you can leave me alone and go back to your Grid. Anyway, I hope you... Can't really say "enjoyed"... Found this fic interesting. There, that'll do. I hope you found it interesting.

Please leave a contribution in the little box.

~EndlessMidnightSky~