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:

Disc Wars

Tron sat on his inactive lightcycle, blending in with the darkened bridge that led into the Iso city that was formerly Sector 105. He had activated a masking subroutine to dampen his armor's lights as he waited. The pattern he had copied many cycles ago from Clu's files had finally manifested itself. It had proven what Giles had been saying all along, the Guards were derezzing Isos that supposedly did not cooperate with Clu's new rules. He disliked the Iso from day one and had ignored what the program had said when he and Flynn had tried to talk to Ophelia, but it seemed that the Iso was correct in the long run.

What Clu was planning to do was wrong; attacking a rally the Isos were holding just so he could eliminate some of the rogue elements was wrong. There had to be due process and there had to be another solution. Peace must be kept in The Grid and for him; it meant that he had to stop this attack, no matter what. His job and duty was to ensure the safety of every single program, Iso or not, and the Guards' actions were contrary to that.

The attempt to console himself and process the fact that Cesta had to be rectified because of guilty footage showing him attacking one of the Guard towers had just left him angry. He could not stop Clu from rectifying Cesta, but he could at least prevent hundreds of innocents from being derezzed by the Black Guards. He felt that there was no need to call them by their former name anymore; after all, they were like the derisive name given to them by the Isos. Black-hearted, cruel, all led by Clu and enjoying what they did.

The hum of lightcycles coming his way made Tron snap out of his processes, no, thoughts, as he lifted his head slightly to watch them pass by. Three lightcycles followed quickly by a Recognizer, all deceptively white colored, shot across the bridge. A part of him thought that they should be red, signifying the deed they had been sent out to do, but quashed it just as fast and gunned his lightcycle, slipping in behind the Recognizer's blind spot.

He activated his disc and threw it towards the center of the three lightcycles, angling it for a low blow. Grinning behind his helmet, he saw as his disc hit the first Black Guard and instantly derezz him. As the remnants of his lightcycle spun out of control, Tron caught his disc and swerved to avoid the tumbling second lightcycle that had gotten clipped.

The second lightcycle exploded behind him, sending a wash of energy past him as Tron gunned the engine and sped ahead of the Recognizer, chasing down the last lightcycle. The Black Guard on the lightcycle immediately lit up his light ribbon to try to distract him, but he was too experienced to let the sudden appearance of a deadly wall of white light throw him off.

Instead, he focused his attention on the Recognizer behind him as his passive systems went on alert, the Recognizer speeding up in an effort to catch him and shoot him down. Tron weaved in and out of the blasts, a part of him thrilled at having the chance to test out his skills against this newest generation of Recognizers.

He noted that they were coming towards a narrow spot and the Black Guard in front of him seemed to have noted the same thing as he immediately threw his lightcycle and light ribbon into the middle of the road. A quick scan behind him showed that the Recognizer did not realize that it was headed into the narrow section and used that to his advantage.

At the last possible second, with the Recognizer still firing furiously behind him, he lifted the two ends of his baton together and derezzed his own lightcycle just as the Recognizer slammed into the walls and rode the explosion high into the air. His feet touched the sides of one of the Isos buildings at the end of the bridge and Tron ran over the open and exposed energy conduit that had been sheared away by the explosion.

The raw energy coursed through him, but Tron ignored the spikes of pain and instead took the excess energy and pushed it to make his runtimes and command lines that much faster. Leaping off of the conduit, he snapped his baton in half again, rezzing his lightcycle and landed on the ground behind the lone Black Guard's lightcycle and continued his pursuit.

Tron bled the rest of the excess energy into his lightcycle, making it go even faster and activated his own light ribbon as he rode over an overpass ramp and went flying into the air. Tron shifted his weight and landed right next to the Black Guard who twitched in shock before ruthlessly swerving and cutting him off at a corner.

He glanced behind him to see the Black Guard's lightcycle instantly derezz against his light ribbon as the program tumbled to the ground, stunned, but not derezzed. Tron deactivated the light ribbon and hit the airfoils, coming to an abrupt stop before turning around and headed back to the fallen Black Guard who was attempting to crawl away.

Jumping off of his lightcycle, but not holstering the baton, he instead twisted it and a staff formed to which he pointed one end against the back of the Black Guard, halting him. "Going somewhere?" Tron asked, nudging the program with a foot.

The Black Guard squirmed under his staff and turned over onto his back, his arms held up in an effort to ward away his staff. "Nowhere, sir," the program sounded scared, but Tron did not allow himself to be fooled.

He knelt down, and grabbed the program's hand, instantly activating his purging protocols to strip away the layers of code from the program. He felt the program twitch under his grip, but focused on his task. Digging deep into the memory core, he finally found the information he was looking for and released the program's hand. The Black Guard immediately stopped twitching and his face was scrunched up in a mask of pain. This time, Tron felt a little sympathy for the program and deactivated the staff, turning it back into a baton.

"Get out of my sight," he growled out before turning around and activated his lightcycle.

Without a second glance, he sped off, headed deeper into the Isos' city. He had to get there before it was too late to save them. The Black Guards were only a distraction to the real threat that was occurring. He weaved in and out of the streets before stopping abruptly as he saw that hundreds of Isos had gathered for the rally. A quick scan told him that he would not be able to navigate his way through in time and looked around him for anything that could help him.

There! The lattice work in the building nearby provided the perfect opportunity for him. Hopping off of his lightcycle, he hurried into the building and immediately placed a hand on one of the columns inside. It had been designed like Ophelia's tower, and Tron was glad that there was at least some consistency within Isos' buildings. He was able to bring up a grid access to the whole city, but was not able to penetrate any further, the Isos having used their natural shielding ability even on their own buildings.

Gritting his teeth, he sent a search query out for what he had discovered in the memory core of the Black Guard he had scanned. His query came back with numerous pings and Tron triangulated the points. A frown formed on his face as he realized that there were too many of them for him to deal with…too many bombs within the area for him to disarm in time. Hundreds of Isos were going to die unless he could-

He cut off that particular thought and delved deep into the circuitry of The Grid itself, pinpointing the location of each bomb. Deep scanning one, he found that it was shielded, but recognized the shielding pattern. It was the same as the gridbugs. Why would the bombs be shielded with gridbug coding layers unless…

"Unless the Isos have the same exact shield," he whispered the revelation pulling him out of his deep scan. Despite all of his efforts, when Clu ordered the poisoning of the Sea of Simulation, he must have also had the Black Guards bring back data from the Sea and using the information he had gotten from Ophelia, plus the inevitable discovery that Tron had tampered with one of his spies, had figured out the connection between the gridbugs shielding and the Isos.

The gridbugs were the exact opposite of the Isos, an unwelcome menace, while the Isos themselves were heralded to be the miracle of The Grid by Flynn. He realized that there had to be balance within The Grid if someone so spontaneous was created, that was the medium between the gridbugs and Isos. The Isos were not the cause of the gridbugs, nor were the gridbugs the cause of the Isos. They were both the attempt by The Grid itself to regulate what was happening.

And so both shared the same shielding; Clu thought that by getting rid of the Isos, he would forever get rid of the gridbugs and make the system perfect. But by poisoning the Sea, he had introduced a new chaotic element within The Grid. Who knew what would happen now to the Sea. "Clu, what have you done?" Tron murmured as he delved back into the layers within the Isos' city.

He had an idea that he wanted to test out and plucked the pattern he had copied off of Clu's files. Merging it with the bits of upgrades he had gotten from Ophelia so long ago, he touched one of the clusters of code that was a bomb and to his credit, was able to bypass the shielding and get deep into the heart of the bomb's codes. He quickly disarmed it before sending a query to the other bombs. They pinged back with the countdown and Tron knew that even though he had discovered how to bypass the shielding, he still would not have enough time to disarm all of the bombs the Black Guards had already set up.

It was time for another approach.

Tron steeled himself as he took the pattern and used it; overriding the emergency protocols within the city, enabling wireless communication. For a moment, there was nothing but silence, something he had been used each time he was within an Iso city or Sector. Then a cacophony of noise thundered across his filters and Tron nearly stumbled back from the pillar he had been linked into, overwhelmed by the noise of all Isos within. The sheer amount of data running through each of their processes nearly took his breath away, but Tron fought through the strong tide and reached out to the one program he was most familiar with.

He found her data path and connected to it, sensing with his passive scans that she was already speaking to the gathered crowd, her words and passion reverberating through her. She was magnificently beautiful.

Ophelia, you need to evacuate the area.

His scanners told him that his contact had made her stumble a bit in her speech before she recovered nicely and continued on as if nothing had happened.

…Tron?

The Black Guards have placed bombs all over the rally. I can't shut them down in time-

Tron's proximity warnings sounded and he looked behind him to see a contingent of Black Guards racing towards him, intent on stopping whatever he was doing.

Clu set this up to take out the rebel Isos! You need to evacuate the area! He uploaded the data he had gotten to her before pulling his hand away from the pillar and activated his disc as the Black Guards surrounded him.

There were no words exchanged as Tron surveyed them. He knew that they were here to derezz him, and they knew that he was here to stop them. He needed to finish this battle fast and make sure that the Isos had evacuated. Suddenly, he flicked his wrist, sending his disc flying towards a Guard, instantly derezzing him before catching the disc back and leapt towards another one, his baton in his right hand.

Smashing the faceplate of another, he leapt off of the program's body and flipped into the air, sending his baton's grappling hook deep into one of the lattices and swung around. Half way through the apex, he shot his disc towards another Black Guard who managed to bounce it away from him, but into another one of his comrades who derezzed with an electronic scream.

Tron completed the loop and released his baton, flying down towards the ground. He landed on his hands and knees, the force of the impact creating a small crater in the ground. Two of the Guards took the opportunity to strike with their staffs, but Tron raised his baton in a parry of one before twisting away from the other staff, rolling to the side. He got to his feet and held his baton and disc in his hands, watching the three remaining Guards warily.

Flipping the grip of his disc towards his inner wrist, he suddenly threw it towards one of the Guards who ducked underneath the disc before throwing his own. Tron flipped over the flying disc before his own ricocheted off of the wall and smashed into the back of the Guard who fell forward, disintegrated into a pile of inactive data. Tron caught his disc mid-air before landing and flicked it in an upwards curve towards one of the Guards still holding a staff, snapping it in half.

He charged forward, stabbing the Guard in his helmet with his baton before catching his disc and turned to face the last of the Black Guards. The Guard seemingly quailed as he backed away from Tron, holding his staff out in an attempt to ward him away.

Clu! We need-

Tron immediately threw his disc as hard as he could, splitting the program's head in half, cutting him off before he could send anymore messages through the emergency protocols. The program fell to the ground, data bleeding out of the fatal gash before derezzing at his feet.

Tron retrieved his disc and hooked it back onto his back before activating the grappling hook and shot it towards the highest lattice of the building he was in. It took him to the top and Tron exited to the roof of the building. He holstered his baton and looked towards where the rally was supposedly held. There were already pillars of smoke in the area and Tron scanned the area. Several Isos were amongst the casualties and there were many more injured, but he saw that most of the Isos had escaped, Ophelia having told them what had happened.

…Tron…

Tron nearly started when he realized he had still left the emergency protocols active and smiled as he heard her voice in his head.

I'm glad you are safe…

Thank you. You have saved many of my brothers and sisters' lives today. I want to let you know-

I have to go, Ophelia. Tron noticed the portal in the eastern sky had suddenly lit up. Flynn was back. Flynn's returned. We'll talk when all of this is over, all right?

I look forward to that.

Tron hastily shut down the emergency protocols before grabbing his baton. Splitting it in half he revved his lightcycle's engine and sped down the sheer vertical side of the Iso building, aiming for the sloping design that sent him back onto the main pathway and from there, down to the solar sailer's platform.

Flynn was back and this time, Tron had the proof of Clu's treachery.

Author's Notes:

Even though I never played Tron: Evolution, I still liked the E3 trailer with Tron kicking Black Guard butt, so I decided to do a small tribute to that in the beginning action sequence. I think this is one of my favorite chapters, though the next one will probably be a favorite too since you can pretty much guess what's to come.