So I'm Tron. Well, at least I play him over on End of Line a play by post roleplay site. This has given me an opportunity to delve into Tron's head, to get to know what makes him tick, who he is as a character.

This is the result of that. A couple notes: This does not represent my preferred headcanon. In this piece, *SPOILER ALERT!* Beck and Yori are dead. In my headcanon, they are both still alive. Their deaths just fit the theme of the piece.

Okay, so without further ado:

THE TRAGEDY OF TRON

or

Accessing MEMRYS.bin...

Tron sat in the outlands, cross-legged. He was perched atop a tall outcropping that actually was all hollowed out, and had at one point served as his safe house when he was running from Clu, in between the Coup and his repurposing.

From where he was sitting, he could see both TRON City and Argon City. It wasn't the last one, the one that was right on top of Argon. It was one used by himself and Cyrus, in between the two cities. Two cities, Argon and Tron. Two points on a grid. Not even the Users knew what kind of line they and points to follow would describe.

The wind rustled Tron's hair as he sat, and simply remembered and reflected on the past.

He had been compiled for only a few cycles before the MCP cracked down on his sector, but they were good cycles. He hadn't been assigned to his function yet, even though he knew what it was, so he had passed the time socializing and playing in the games. It was during this time of happiness that he met Yori. She was a program that ran Laser Control and monitored simulations. Their functions couldn't have been more different, but something deeper told them that they were perfect for each other.

Yori... Users, he missed her. When Flynn had brought him over to this new server, he had received massive upgrades and editing, to ensure he would be properly compatible with this new system. The laser control system here needed different programs, Yori just wouldn't be compatible, not without making her Not Yori. By the time Tron had thought to ask Flynn if Yori could be brought over just to live, with no function, like the ISOs, it was already too late. Technology had moved forward. Yori was gone.

He had cried for almost an entire cycle. But he had to tamp down his feelings. The Grid needed him. Flynn needed him. This new world Flynn was building needed him. Clu... Clu needed him.

Tron supposed he should have seen it sooner. The occasional look of disdain toward them, when he thought no one was looking. "Rouge" groups of security programs with access to areas they wouldn't have been able to reach otherwise. The "accidents" that took place once he allowed ISOs into the games.

The accidents turned into purposeful derezzing, slowly but surely. He disliked it, and resisted it, but the crowd grew to like it. Kind of like the proverbial frog boiling in a pot, the temperature was just turned up slowly.

Whatever a frog was.

Then the moment happened.

Tron was escorting Flynn back to the portal, to keep him safe from a recent virus outbreak.

"Am I still to create the perfect system?"

"Yeah..."
Clu's true colors were revealed to Tron in that moment, and Tron's own friends turned on him.

"Flynn, GO!"
Losing Yori had taught him to never get too close to anyone. To realize that any moment, your friend may be derezzed. So he had few regrets as he defended Flynn's escape.

Dyson's betrayal only further cemented that lesson in his curcuitry.

After the initial attack, a program inside Clu's forces had pity on him, and facilitated his escape to the Outlands. Cyrus. Tron was wounded, injured. He couldn't fight. So he began to groom Cyrus to take his place. He began to open up again, to think that he found a friend. Abel was another friend he allowed to see inside his shell, into his deepest fears and sorrows, as well as joys and triumphs.. The world was getting brighter.

But then Cyrus betrayed him. Crying about his lack of "free will", he embarked on an insane quest to "free" the Grid... by destroying it. At first, Tron tried to reason with him. The users that programmed them, that created their world, only had their good, and the good of the system in mind! And the users STILL gave them some measure of freedom! They could choose! But Cyrus would hear none of it, and Tron and Abel were forced to trap him within Compressed Space. And all was darkness again.

Each subsequent betrayal made it harder and harder for him to open up, to expose himself to the emotional pain that could, and in his case, generally would come. He was already in enough pain.

Beck was a bright point. He never betrayed him. Not ever. Even after they both lost Abel, they could rely on each other. Lean on each other. Mourn with each other. They were friends, of a sort Tron had not had since before the Coup. They even healed his scars, through a parital repurposing that cleansed his code of imperfections.

No, Beck never betrayed Tron. But Tron betrayed Beck. He did it to save him. To save the one friend he couldn't bear to lose. He went to Clu. He allowed himself to be overwritten. And that's when he gave up on getting close, opening up, to anyone, ever again.

He couldn't bear to think again of how Beck died. Sometimes, Tron wanted to cube himself in penance for the deed.

Tron winced and gritted his teeth as his scars shot familiar pain through his shell. It stopped soon. The parital repurposeing had caused an error when the full proccess was undergone, restoring every scar. Every bit of pain. Clu issued him another disk just to hold all the patch code that kept him functional.

He decided to skip the next part, and get to where he was in control of his own mind once more.

Quorra had found him and pulled him out of the Sea of Simulation. She saved his life. He was soon in Tron Tower, rebuilt, with medic programs and users buzzing around him. They stopped the progress of the wounds, but the scars remained.

It had been so long since he had spoken to Alan-1. Sometimes he wondered why he couldn't talk with him in this new system, but he assumed Flynn had a reason. So when Sam offered to take him into the real world to meet him, really MEET him, he was floored. He knew that Users could come into their world and visit their programs, but to meet HIS user, in HIS USER'S world? It was utterly amazing. But it was only a small island of joy in a sea of sorrow. And even then, a once close relationship was strained.

But then Edward Dillinger Jr. came in, with MCTRL-751, and a threat to the safety of the Grid rose up again. Tron had his duty to perform. So this was where the world was at now.

Tron continued to sit there, thinking, pondering what the future may bring.

END

Comments? Questions? Suggestions? MASSIVE continuity errors?