A/N: Heya, everyone! I'm back (finally!) with another chapter!

Thank you to Reviewers: SixFootUnder, Sidicious, and A Type of Wallflower. Just the fact that I got three reviews in this small but growing fandom has me more than thrilled and so grateful!

Thank you to those who Favorited/ Story Alerted: SixFootUnder, A Type of Wallflower, icetenten, ILovePie930, NellieTheHeartless, Scarlet Snidget, and Sidicious.

Disclaimer: I do not own Tron: Legacy, nor anything that is featured in the comic Tron: Betrayal or the videogame Tron: Evolution.

Fandom: Tron: Legacy

Pairing: CastorXQuorra

Prompt: Tron 50 Challenge

Title: Entertainments and Diversions

Chapter Two: Armor

Quorra followed closely behind Flynn, not paying an ounce of attention to where he was leading her. Her sea-blue eyes were open, but she was focused entirely inward, her thoughts clouding her mind and making her movements sluggish. She wouldn't have thought that her circuitry could slow down from such a minor process, but it appeared that her confusion was putting unexpected strain on her system. Perhaps with the more she learned and the more her system kept up to date with the events in her life, she would adapt accordingly.

For now, though, she could not put her last conversation with him out of her mind.

"I'll–I'll see you around, then?" She had been so fidgety and nervous. Why, though? He was just another program, just like her and Clu and Tron. Just like her fellow ISOs. Except he wasn't the same. Not exactly. His mannerisms were too vibrant, his speech too fluid, and his attitude too confident. Not even Kevin Flynn, the Creator of this system, had displayed that kind of confidence.

"Hmm, no." And he had smiled then, utterly amused but there was a tinge of sadness there. Why had he been sad? "No, I don't believe you will."

And that had been it. It was not so incredibly strange––certainly nothing compared to her creation––yet she was thinking more intently about that one little encounter than anything else that had happened in the past two millicycles, even placing it above learning her own identity. Surely, it wasn't as important as learning something that substantial. No single attribute about a person was above one's own name. That was the central feature of a person where all others began and centered around.

Quorra.

She rather liked her name. It felt significant for some reason that she found her own name without someone assigning one to her. She had a strange feeling that such a thing didn't happen very often.

Zuse.

But what about him? How did he acquire his name? It seemed to state something so specific, something almost intangible, and yet she knew what that something was. It was a powerful name, an ambitious name, one that is forever seeking knowledge.

And the other programs? What of them? How were their names granted to them? What did their names say about them? For that matter, what did her own indicate about her? She didn't really know, herself. It seemed easy for her to analyze others, but it was obvious to her that she wasn't nearly as proficient at self-reflection. Or when it came to analyzing Zuse's actual being, not just his name.

She was jolted from her musings as Flynn stopped before her, finally arriving at the end of the lit-up hallway. She watched as he raised his hand, placing it upon the door that was firmly shut in front of him. Lights from the circuitry flashed and beeped quietly under his palm, and she was amazed at how deftly he moved his fingers to input the desired code. The door swooshed open to the right, revealing a room cloaked entirely in shadow, but instead of walking in, Flynn stood aside and gestured towards the opening.

"The armory," he stated simply, moving his gestured arm to run a hand through his brown hair. Quorra realized that he seemed suddenly nervous.

"You, uh," he began, lowering his arm to wave towards her, "you obviously need new clothes. The weather here isn't exactly sunshine at the beach, and the ones you ISOs have with you, weeeelll..." He cut off, looking at her directly. "They just don't cut it, kiddo. Plus, you need a disk to be fully integrated into the system, so we may as well kill two for one, huh?"

She nodded slowly. "I agree. Let's go, then."

She stepped forward, but instead of him following her like she expected, he sidestepped out of her way, laughing lightly.

"Trust me, Quorra, you don't want me present for this one." He grinned sheepishly, motioning her forward. "I'll see you when you get out, same place as before. Go on. They're waiting for you."

He turned from her, retreating back down the hallway. She watched until all she could make out were the lights from his shoes, and she was left in semi-darkness. With more than a little apprehension, she entered the armory.

The light from the hallway gave her a little assistance to see with, until it closed almost silently behind her. Feeling suddenly trapped by the darkness, Quorra hesitated in taking another step, feeling the circuits in her chest begin to pound and energize. She wasn't sure why she felt so vulnerable––Flynn already proved to be trustworthy to her––but she did. She couldn't understand, though, why he didn't stay with her; having that reassurance would have greatly helped her nerves. Her fear was abated, though, when dim lights started to illuminate the room.

The architecture of the room was much like the rest that she had seen within the city so far. A polished, metallic floor was cool beneath her bare feet, the walls reflecting these features but alternating between gray and white. The high ceiling above her was a darker gray, and through the shadows clinging to each corner, she could see where the attached lights were directing most of their light towards: a small, raised platform in the middle of the room.

Quorra stared at the platform for a moment before moving her gaze around the room one last time. Flynn had said that "they" were waiting for her, but she had yet to glimpse a sign of any other person, be it Program or User. Taking a calming breath, the ISO resumed her steps forward, feeling emboldened, and proceeded to stand atop the platform. The moment she did, her feet were suddenly trapped in place, a door she hadn't noticed to the right of her flew open, and the matching clank, clank, clank! of platform shoes filled the air.

The door she had entered, stationed directly behind her still, remained closed, so Quorra attempted to see who was approaching her from the far shadows of the room. Two female programs––she could tell that much from the way their white circuitry lit up and framed their bodies––moved in sync towards her, but she could not make out much else, especially their faces. At the pace the two were moving, however, this quickly changed, and the programs moved to stand on either side of the ISO, facing her.

The program on her left had dark skin and hair, piercing black eyes, and was dressed in a fitted, all black suit, but it was free from any armor that Quorra could see; the same could be said for the program on her right, except she was light-skinned, even paler than Quorra, and dressed in white and gray.

"Another ISO, I presume?" the all-white program stated, but all of them knew the question was rhetorical. The black cloth wrapped around Quorra's body, the tattoo glowing from her left shoulder, and her wide, curious stare betrayed exactly what she was.

"I'm Quorra," she said. The other two programs exchanged glances. The dark program refocused her sharp gaze on the ISO.

"I'm Ellipse," she replied then nodded toward her partner, "and that's Ada. We're Installation programs. We're going to give you what you'll need to operate and survive within the system. What you choose to do with them after you leave here is up to you, ISO."

Quorra nodded, showing she understood. "But, why can't I move?"

"It helps dressing you run more smoothly," Ada interjected. "One misstep can seriously hinder the whole process."

"I can promise you," Quorra said, slightly indignant, "I may be new to this system, but I know how to undress and dress myself."

The white program only smiled indulgently. At this point, Ellipse stepped forward, extending her pointer finger upward. Suddenly, her fingertip burst into a glowing, buzzing light, becoming a laser, and without further ado, she began to steadily cut through Quorra's clothes. Ada diligently removed the strips of cloth as Ellipse cut through them, tossing them to the ground where spaces in the floor in turn opened up to suck them down for disposal.

Quorra felt increasingly awkward the longer she stood there, and a light blush of embarrassment dusted her cheeks as she understood why Flynn had made a hasty retreat before. Beneath all of his confident airs, he truly was a gentleman.

She shook slightly as a cold chill swept over her body, having more and more of her skin exposed to the cool air than she'd ever had before. She was feeling more and more useless by the second. Was she supposed to be doing something? Maybe not anything productive but surely something else other than standing there purposelessly?

Eventually, the two programs finished their work, and Quorra was left wearing nothing at all to shield her from the cool temperature of the room or from prying eyes. It didn't last long, however, for, starting from her bare feet, warmth quickly sped up her body, surrounding everything from the neck down. At the same time, she watched, mesmerized, as a stretchy black material covered her lower body, fashioned like pants. This same material also covered her upper body, only it draped over her like a long shirt would, leaving only her shoulders bare.

Seeing that this phase of the integration had been completed successfully, Ada and Ellipse left her to cross in sync towards the left wall of the room. Once there, Ellipse lightly touched her finger––now devoid of the laser––to the wall, and a shelf seamlessly slid out, containing two pieces of black, light armor. Both programs reached for the separate pieces of armor before marching back to Quorra. Ellipse attached hers to Quorra's back while Ada's was suited around Quorra's chest and stomach. Swiftly and smoothly, the armor melded itself to Quorra's outfit, and she could feel it as they attached together above her shoulders. It was then that her circuits started to whir and hum like never before as a line of circuitry blinked its way to life up her right leg, across her chest, and down both of her arms. A smile curved her lips at the sight; she truly looked like one of them now.

Unbeknownst to Quorra through her fascination with the installation, a platform had risen behind her, so she was slightly startled when a cool female voice echoed throughout the room.

"Attention, program. You will now receive an Identity Disk. Everything you do or learn will be recorded on this disk. If you lose your disk or fail to follow command, you may be subject to immediate deresolution."

Quorra wasn't sure what "deresolution" was, but it certainly didn't sound pleasant; this disk she was about to receive must really be something. When Ada returned with the disk, attaching it to Quorra's back, Quorra felt the strange sensation of having her mind completely and totally wiped of all thought or feeling before experiencing the surge of every memory and experience uploading to the disk. The circuitry within her was truly going into overdrive now, but she instinctively knew this was standard behavior. When everything began to fade back to normal again, the same voice she had heard after her birth sounded within her again.

"System now running at full capacity."

Her feet were freed, and as she stumbled back, she noticed that her feet were still bare.

"Uh." She pointed down at them, but looked up to see that Ellipse was already prepared for her, holding out a pair of black boots that she had retrieved from another drawer near the armor. "Thank you," Quorra replied, taking them from the program and putting them on. They were also made from the same material as her clothes, so she could barely tell where her boots ended and her pants began after she put them on.

"That wasn't so bad, now was it?" Ellipse stated, and Quorra laughed lightly in relief, knowing the program was just joking to lighten the mood.

"It was . . . different."

The ISO straightened up, absentmindedly tucking a bit of her short, dark hair behind her ear while she looked down at her new garb. This was it, then. This would be how she looked from here on out. Things were really going to start changing for her and the other ISOs, ideally for the better, after all of this. Still, she was wondering about something.

"How come you chose a black outfit for me?" Quorra wondered, looking between the two programs before focusing on Ada. "I've seen a few others––even some of my own siblings––in white suits. Is there some special reason for those?"

"Not really. They're more for variety's sake, though they are less common," Ada affirmed. "You came here in black, and it really seemed to suit you, even more so than some of the other ISOs I've seen so far. It seems fitting that you leave here in black as well." She smiled, but the smile, while genuine, didn't seem to reach her eyes like Kevin's smiles did his. Quorra was dismayed to think that all programs, including herself, so thoroughly lacked that distinctive touch of emotion that Users had until she remembered. . . Zuse. His eyes had easily conveyed what he was feeling. What was it about him that made him so different from the other programs? And more importantly, could she learn to be the same way?

She didn't know why, but despite knowing that she was a program herself, she didn't want to operate like the ones she had interacted with thus far, such as that cold program that had escorted her to Flynn, Clu and his unyielding sternness, or even these Installation programs who, while beautiful, calm, and soothing, held no real warmth or feeling. Was it the disk that did this? But, no, Zuse and even Kevin Flynn had a disk. It couldn't be that. She guessed it really must be within their programming to generally behave that way. They didn't just wear armor for protection, it seemed. They wore their own special brand of armor to hide their feelings as well, to dull them from others seeing them.

Well, she wasn't going to let her basest programming stop her from enjoying herself and experiencing life on the Grid to the fullest. Not if she could help it. She couldn't see what the other programs were hiding from, if they even were hiding. She would risk being attacked for it if it meant that she could be herself, just as she was made. It seemed to work out for Zuse just fine.

As Ellipse and Ada led her back to the armory entrance, exchanging polite farewells with her, Quorra couldn't stop the a stray thought from wandering through her mind. How exactly would she have looked if they had chosen to garb her in an all-white suit, instead?

Clu and Tron were gone when she returned to the sitting room, but Flynn was still there, waiting for her on the couch. He was focused intensely on something that he was holding between his hands but looked up at her arrival.

"Wow, look at you." He smiled. "How's it feel? Comfortable?"

"Surprisingly, yes," Quorra replied, smiling in turn, but she couldn't abate her curiosity for long.

"What is that you're holding?"

"This?" He closed the object, holding it up by its spine. "It still amazes me how programs are so thrown by one of these. It's a book. It's something in my world that's used to convey information and to entertain. They come in all different sizes and tell some of the most astounding ideas and stories, on paper, though. Programs have access to something similar in files and in your disks, but as you know, all that's digital. Books allow Users to have all of that, just in a hard copy."

"Oh," she stated, a little overwhelmed. "So, instead of uploading the information, you–?"

"Read it," he finished.

"I guess," she concluded, "Users can't upload information like Programs can. You learn by…experiencing it firsthand, through sight and––"

"Mental processes, yeah."

"So, what is it you're reading?"

"Ah." Flynn looked down at the book's cover, smiling fondly at it. "George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. It's about a country that tried to create a perfect world, a utopia, but it quickly turned into a totalitarian state. A mockery of perfection. Heavy stuff."

"Why are you reading it?"

"To learn from other's mistakes, so I don't repeat them." He smiled, but it was self-mocking. "I'm starting to think that it's all for nothing, though, given recent events."

At her inquiring look, he merely laughed good-naturedly and handed the book to her.

"You can have it, if you want. I can easily get another copy back home, and I think you would enjoy it."

She took it gratefully, excited to start it, but there was more she wanted to ask him.

"What's it like? Your world?"

He wanted to answer her, she could tell, but it wasn't the right moment. "That'll have to wait 'till next time. But you'll see it one day. I promise."

That thoroughly caught her attention. Really? She would? How? But Kevin had moved on.

"Now, is there anything else about what has happened today that you still have questions about? I don't mean to rush you out the door, but there are still many ISOs left to see."

She had plenty of questions for him. Where was she supposed to go now? What was she supposed to do? She was an ISO, but what did that mean her function was in the system? Did she truly belong here, or was this all an accident? Where could she find Zuse if she needed to? It was strange how she already regarded him as a friend, but she wasn't blind to the impact he had already had in her life.

"I noticed that the Installtion programs didn't have armor. Neither did Clu. Or you. But Tron did, and I do. How come we need them, and you don't?"

"A fair question," said Flynn. "Ellipse and Ada rarely if ever leave this tower. This is their home, and this is where their programming requires them to be most of the time. Clu has armor, but he refuses to wear it most days. He will if he needs to, but . . ." He trailed off. "I don't wear armor––though I really probably should––because I'm a User. If I get hit, I won't get damaged or derezzed like you programs do. Though I'm sure any hit would still really hurt." He laughed.

"Tron wears armor because he's a security program. He protects this system from corrupt programs, and believe me, even in this system, there are many of them. Viruses, Trojans, rogues. The Grid isn't as safe as it once was, I'm sorry to say. As one of the system's best fighters, he needs all of the protection he can get. And so do you. As an ISO, you are a very rare program, and it would be a shame if anything happened to any of you just because I didn't see that you were probably provided for.

"I could sequester you away if I wanted, but that would be a real tragedy. You deserve to experience this system like every other program, regardless of how special you are. Just be wary. Be alert, and learn how to protect yourself. I'm sure there are many who are willing to teach you if you want to learn. Seek out Bartik or the ISO leader, Radia. She'll set you right, I'm sure."

Quorra nodded, sensing that her meeting with the Creator was over, and thanked him for all he had done. Especially for the book.

Kevin rose as the black-haired ISO made it to the door, grinning mischievously at what he had just thought to serve as their goodbyes.

"And you know, kiddo," Flynn said in a playful tone, making Quorra stop in her exit to look back at him, "I'm certain that, if you could find him, that is, Zuse would be more than happy to help you. With anything you ask."

Quorra heard Flynn's chuckle of amusement as she walked quickly––not fled, thank you very much––down the hall, thankful that no other program was there to see her flush.

Was she that obvious, or was Flynn just observant?

Somehow, she didn't think it was the latter.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed that. Zuse should be in the next chapter in all his sexy Disney princess glory. Until next time!