Prologue

After the fall of the MCP, Tron thought he would never see Flynn again.

After all, it was natural to think so. When Flynn had jumped into the core of the MCP, Tron assumed - with the way the User's body seemed to be transmitted through the MCP's beam - that Flynn was being sent back home. After all, with the defeat of the MCP, Flynn's work in the System had been done. For a while afterward, Tron became even more curious about Flynn and his World, though he showed this to no one. What waited for Flynn when he returned home? Did he have friends, as Tron did? Did he have a loved one, as Tron did? Did he see Alan One again, as Tron never would have the chance to do so? So many questions, and yet there were no answers. After Flynn's departure, there was no evidence left that an actual User had stood in their midst. No evidence, that is, but the fact that the Ststem was free, and there was going to be no trouble ever again...

Until, as Tron called it, the Pull. He remembered that moment well, when his mind had suddenly become separate from his body, and in the beat of a pulse, part of him was being absorbed in a strange, invisible vortex faster than he could open his mouth to scream for Yori. Yori, who stood with the body he'd left behind, not at all aware of what had transpired. Tron saw himself standing there with her, the part of him that remained seeming to not have been affected by this strange phenomenon.

"Let's go home," he heard his Other Half say to Yori, both of them blissfully unaware of the envious Nothing that was among them. "I have to be well prepared for Alan One's next assignment." That Other Half... he was talking in Tron's voice, so much so that the invisible Tron almost forgot his own mouth wasn't moving, and that he was now a seprate entity.

Tron finally found his voice and he tried to scream, to break way from whatever was pulling him away from himself, away from the System, away from Yori. With his last bit of sentience for many millicycles, Tron uttered a desperate plea for attention, for help, for acknowledgement, for rescue from whatever unnatural force held the security Program in its tight, unrelenting grasp. When Tron had screamed himself hoarse, everything went black.

And Yori, at that time, swore she heard her name in the distance, but saw nothing.

For many cycles afterward, Tron saw nothing but darkness and the glow of his circuitry. Normally, it would have glowed brighter, but now it was muted, barely visible. Over the course of a microcycle, part of him had been untimely ripped from his own body and suddenly trapped in darkness. The Warrior Tron was not usually one to admit fear, but this time, there was nothing else to admit. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know where Yori was. He didn't know where anything was. All he knew was that it was dark, and he was alone. To light his path, the Program willed himself to be slightly more confident; a Program lost, confused, and far from his home did not project much light. However, no matter how bright he became, the darkness was impenetrable. Tron had no choice but to explore the darkness how it was. He didn't know how much time had passed, but no matter how far he walked or where he walked, there were no obstacles. No walls. Just the ground and a darkness that was almost palpable. Finally, Tron hit a wall. His hand brushed up against it, and there it was. It was a smooth wall, like the large maze-like structures of the System, but it held no color. It was just as black as the rest of this strange room in which Tron had found himself. For all he knew, it was invisible. In a sudden burst of determination, Tron felt his way along the wall, hoping to find some sort of answers to the many, many questions he had.

It was the emptiness of the room that scared him. Not only was it dark, and not only was it as big as his home sector, but it was also chillingly quiet. There was literally no sound except for the steps Tron made on the deserted digital ground. Even then, the ground somehow made his steps muted; this place, wherever it was, might have been a vacuum, a place without sound.

But still, he could hear his own breathing, that mechanical process that circulated Energy throughout his body. If it was still possible for sound to be made... why wasn't there any? Was the room as empty as it looked?

Or was that what he was supposed to think?

Whatever the outcome turned out to be, Tron went against his better judgment and called out to something - anything - that was inside the room with him.

"Hello?" he tried, tapping on the wall a few times to create some noticeable noise. It wouldn't have mattered if he was brought face-to-face with Sark's zombie again; Tron only wanted for this deserted space not to be so quiet. "Is anyone here?"

Still, silence.

Tron tried again. "My name is Tron," he warily added. "I come from... the ENCOM System... I was wondering if, maybe..." he hesitated, not sure what to say next. "... If maybe there were any other Programs here? Or... anyone else?"

At this point, Tron didn't care. He was being driven mad by the silence. He wanted to see someone. Not just someone - anyone.

What seemed like ten full cycles passed before something finally happened. It was the same absorbing force as before, only this time, it stole away his entire being. Tron could no longer see his own body, his own being. Most of it had vanished, presumably into a data stream that had just appeared. The scattered bits of himself were being propelled through the data stream at the speed of a Light Cycle at its peak performance. The self-aware fraction of Tron followed, and within moments in the data stream, he suddenly began to feel nauseous. How nausea could come to a being reduced to tiny pixels of data scattered along a very lengthy data stream, it is impossible to know for sure. However, in that suspended, weightless state of a single pixel of himself, Tron learned that everything he ever knew, everything he had ever accepted as logic - before and after Flynn's appearance - would now apply for naught. He would have to forget everything he had ever accepted as truth - even, to his surprise and dismay, his User himself - and instead be the willing tool and servant of another entity altogether.

Tron simply wasn't preapred to find out exactly who that entity was.

However, whether he was prepared or not, Tron once again found himself in one piece. Looking himself over, Tron realized that he looked... different from before. Where there had been a bright and intricate pattern of circuitry before, there was simply black, with a few dots of circuitry here and there. Tron looked down at his chest; the "T" was still there, but it was significantly smaller and more subtle than before. A flash of brown out of the corner of his eye made him look up and notice that his helmet was now gone. Whether it had been lost in the transmission or it simply wasn't a part of his new armor, Tron didn't know, and he hardly cared, either. He took a few moments to run his fingers through his hair, curious at how it had significantly more substance than before.

"Greetings, Program. Welcome to the Grid."

Tron's circuitry (or what of it showed now) flared as he jumped, startled by a familiar voice. He turned around to look at the Program addressing him, only to learn that this "Program" wasn't a Program after all.

"Flynn?" Tron asked incredulously, taking a few steps toward the User.

Flynn, also black-clad but now with a bright white stripe down the side of his torso, spread out his arms and grinned. "In the flesh, man!" he exclaimed, before suddenly correcting himself. "Uh... Well... You know what I mean."

Tron didn't.

Shrugging it off, Flynn approached the confused security Program and patted him on the back, grinning like that had only talked last millicycle. "How've you been, man? Still working hard for Alan?'

Alan One, Tron wanted to correct him, but he was too dazed to give Flynn a real answer. "Okay, I guess," he replied absently.

"That's alright, that's good," Flynn continued jubilantly, as if he, too, was blissfully unaware of the strange events the security Program had just experienced. "How's Yori? You two hitting it off?" he raised his eyebrows and smirked as if there had been something in that question Tron had missed.

Tron was still so overcome by confusion, anxiety, and distress that he simply gave Flynn a look that told the User never to say that name again if he wanted to stay in one piece.

But Flynn, ever energetic and carefree in a way Tron envied, seemed to ignore this. "Well," he continued, patting Tron's shoulder, "I suppose there's nowhere to get to but down to business. You probably have a lot of questions, and I understand that. So I'm going to make this as quick and easy as possible. After all, the more we talk, the less time we have to build!"

"Build what?" Tron suddenly interjected.

Once again, Flynn ignored him, caught up in his own world (Tron, ironically, had no way of knowing at the time how literal this metaphor truly was) of excitement. "What you're looking at here is called the 'Grid'. Will be, anyway. It's still in its early stages. But that's where you come in, buddy!"

Tron didn't know when or why his name had suddenly become "Buddy", but he nodded for Flynn to continue, attempting to take in every word Flynn said.

"I need you to help me create and maintain the Grid. Oh, don't worry, it's not like the Game Grid. It's actually a lot better. Will be, anyway. And a lot cooler, too! Come on, I'll show -"

"I wasn't programmed to create or repair," Tron warily pointed out, effectively interrupting Flynn. "Only to hunt down infections and other intrusions and destroy them, or at least eliminate them to the best of my ability. I won't be able to help unless there's a security breach or there's a certain area that needs inspection and patrol. And even then, I won't be able to do that until I have time to learn the area and -"

It was Flynn's turn to interrupt. For once in that conversation, he seriously considered Tron's words, and when he had heard enough, Flynn grabbed the Program by the shoulders and turned Tron to face him, cutting him off from his babble about his sole purpose in life.

"Programming, schmogramming," Flynn told him with a playful gleam in his eyes. "You're only useful when you can do things other than what you were meant to do." He smiled at Tron for a few moments, before inviting him on a personal tour of the Grid and a demonstration of Tron's upgraded functions.

Tron never forgot Flynn's words. Not for cycles, and not for years.