Tron: Adagio

By: Shadow Chaser

Author's Notes:

This story covers the entire comic, Tron: Betrayal, and flashbacks from Tron: Legacy itself. The scenarios of the game Evolution are not mentioned in here as I did not play the game. All characters are not mine, they belong to Disney.

Story:

Rinzler

The Sea of Simulation was always a mystery to Tron as he shut off his lightcycle and stuck his baton on the side of his suit. His patrols always took him to the Sea, but this was one of the rare times that he had stopped to stare out at its gentle, but unpredictable waves. It always instilled a sense of calm in him that not even his moments in the End of Line club or even the arena could do for him.

He remembered that Flynn had called it a zen-like paradise, a figure of speech from the real world that he did not quite get until his friend had explained that staring at something that was randomized usually made one think. Such was true for the Sea as his scans came up with an error read and when he had told Flynn so, the User had laughed so hard that he had nearly fallen into the Sea.

Flynn had then told him that he took things too seriously and made him promise that whenever he decided to stop and stare at the Sea, it would be a place where he could think, not process, just think like Users did. He did not know what it entailed, but perhaps Flynn was right, staring at something that was randomized and not even functioning as part of The Grid, the Sea of Simulation did provoke some very User-centric style of thoughts.

He stepped to the edge of the Sea, wondering what he should be finding. There was no light to the east of the Sea, no Flynn this cycle. The gridbug situation was under control, but he had a feeling that it was getting out of control, especially with the booming population of Isos and Clu's newest restrictions. Tron suddenly frowned as he noticed something out of the corner of his eye…

A gridbug? He carefully unhooked his disc and activated it, its reassuring hum echoing in the emptiness of the Sea. There! There it was again! Tron lashed out, swiping the ground with his disc and was rewarded with a feeble electronic scream. It was a gridbug…but what were gridbugs doing in the Sea of Simulation unless…

Could the Sea itself be producing the gridbugs? The process jolted through him as he looked around the edges of the Sea, searching for anymore signs of gridbugs. They were a nuisance, annoyance-

"Destroying everything Flynn worked so hard to bring together to The Grid!" he growled out in frustration as he scanned as wide and as far as possible, ignoring the multiple error warnings he was receiving back. He did not care about the Sea itself, just the coastline. He needed to know if the gridbugs were truly coming out of the Sea of Simulation!

"You're destroying the ideal world and you want to hide in here?" he shouted out loud, the frustrations that had been building up in him finally letting loose. His scans had come back negative as he bellowed an inarticulate roar at nothing in particular, slamming his disc into the ground, before glaring at the Sea itself; glaring towards where the portal was usually lit. "How do you expect me to think? To guard the programs and The Grid itself? They even named the city after me! I can't protect them like this! I can't-"

Tron froze mid-rant as he saw an armored figure reflected back at him from the Sea. It only took half of a nanocycle for him to realize that it was his own reflection, yet, very different, almost alien. Gone was the blue hues that colored his suit and instead it was bright orange, reminiscent of the colors that designated programs loyal to the MCP and Sark.

"Wha…"

He reached up with his hand to touch his face, watching as his reflection mirrored his own gestures, but his face was not there. Instead, the Sea was showing him with a jet black helmet, bullet shaped and inhuman.

He looked at the disc he held and saw his reflection do the same, but somehow, the gesture was not comforting. It was sinister and seemed almost forced. "What…are you showing me?" he whispered, horrified at what he was seeing.

As if answering him, he saw the image dissolve as a wave lapped against the shore, but just as the wave retreated, another image dissolved in and Tron thought he heard phantom voices in his head.

"Take the shot!"

He vaguely recognized the voice as Clu's. But what would Clu be telling this orange armored program-

"Rinzler, take the shot! Finish the game!"

Tron stumbled back away from the Sea as he shook his head, tripping on a rock and falling to the ground. He managed to catch himself and was shocked to see that his hands were shaking. Curling them into fists, he forced himself to calm down and hooked his disc back into its holster. To quote Flynn, he wondered what the hell that was about as he stared at the spot where he had been standing. He shook his head wordlessly, unable to come up with the correct solution to what he saw.

Who was this Rinzler and why was he wearing his armor or even listening to commands from Clu to shoot down someone? Was it part of the arena games that enabled a flying contraption that he did not know could even exist?

For the first time, Tron realized that he felt a very User and human emotion, fear. He was afraid of this Rinzler.

Author's Notes:

Alas, sorry for the short delay on this, was stuck at work overnight due to the massive snowstorm so I couldn't post it earlier.

One of two penultimate chapters in this little story and gives Tron a very much needed flaw – fear itself. ^_^ I have to say, I was one of those cheering for Rinzler's conversion back to Tron during the times I watched the movie and was so glad that he returned back to normal, though falling into the Sea of Simulation and rebooting was pretty nifty. I decided to take that little leaf and sort of reverse it to what you're reading now.