EXPOSITION EXPOSITION RUSH IT OUT ASAP
Title: I Owe You A Love Song [21/?]
Fandom(s): TRON: Legacy/The Princess Bride
Characters/pairing: Sam Flynn/Tron; Quorra, Anon, Ed Dillinger, Jr., Ed Dillinger, Sr., Jordan, Clu, Radia, Zuse, Gem, Alan & Lora Bradley, Dumont, Jarvis, Sark, Kevin, the MCP, etc. (Jeebus Christmas, y’all)
Rating: T+
Word count: 995
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Summary: Horses are lightcycles, ships are Solar Sailers and Recognizers, Prince Edward Dillinger, Jr. of the Grid needs a reason to go to war with Bostrum, and Sam just wants Tron and his father back.
Author's Note: I managed to shrink down 1257 words of exposition to 995. I am the master commander, \o/
Tron sits up and rubs his arms while Kevin steps back from the control panel. His legs are still locked in but he now feels less claustrophobic without something clamping onto his disk. He looks at the interfaces and displays surrounding them; they’re familiar, like he’s been here before.
“Don’t remember much, do you?”
Tron looks at Kevin, at the collar around the User’s neck. Kevin notices and touches its vertical orange circuit. “If I try to leave I lose my head.”
“How...?”
“How am I still alive? How did I end up here?” Kevin limps around the platform, hands behind his back. “Or, how did you forget?”
Tron bows his head. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s because he’s been playing a long game,” Kevin says and he sounds so tired. “Found out after he brought me here just how long.” He pauses, then says, “I never told you the reason why I left you two, did I?”
“You were going to find a better life for us out there. Why? What-it’s Clu, wasn’t it?”
“He was looking for me. Friends in ENCOM City said he’d started up a project I abandoned and he couldn’t complete it without me. He’d no idea where I’d been banished to but he knows how to find people; he’d have found our farm sooner or later. I wasn’t lying, but you were both too young to know the truth.”
He looks at Tron warily, anticipating an outburst, a fist in the face. Another time - five years ago, to be exact - Tron would’ve given him that and more. The past several days have taken a toll on him, though, and he just says, “MCP got you first.”
“Yeah. Hid me from Clu but wouldn’t let me go back home. When I inherited his Recognizer I was on the other side of the world. Took me a couple years just to get near Bostrum.”
“Then you attacked my Solar Sailer.”
“There’s that.” Kevin sighs. “You know, if the Bostrumites weren’t there we could’ve gone home to Sam. Just our luck they were there looking for me.”
Tron knows what he means. It haunted him during his three years with Dread Pirate Paranoid. When the crew asked why the Gridian war minister wanted them - doesn’t he have better things to do than to chase one pirate? - Kevin said it was because they were harboring an ISO. That’s what Tron believed, until Clu was standing on their burning Rectifier, kicking a dead Basic overboard while talking to Kevin like they’re old acquaintances. By then Quorra had escaped, so Clu should’ve had no reason to stick around.
“What do you remember?” Kevin asks.
Tron remembers the soldiers coming in waves, two replacing every one he killed. He fought long after everybody else died or surrendered, knowing he’d never see Sam again. Then a soldier found an opening, sent him flying across the deck. They were on him before he could get back up, dragged him to Kevin’s side as Clu approached.
He remembers the cruel smile, remembers shaking off five soldiers and slashing the war minister across the chest before being hit in the neck. After that, fire. Hands and braces holding him down, clamps on his disk, fire purging him from the inside out as he screamed.
“I’ve been here before,” he finally says. “What is this place?”
Kevin slides his hand along the platform’s edge. “This is the Rectifier, an old wartime project I worked on before the Grid-Arjia War. King Edward wanted to accelerate a Basic’s training in preparation for it but Clu wanted to use its more extreme application. We couldn’t let it happen so we destroyed the blueprints. I was banished for treason.”
“Not executed?”
“The...queen had a hand in that.”
He doesn’t clarify what the Rectifier actually does Accelerate a Basic’s training, he said, but what Tron remembers is agonizing pain. “So what did he do to me?”
“He...” Kevin hesitates. “You were incredible. Killed two-thirds of Clu’s soldiers before they stopped you. Thing was, you impressed him so he spared you and brought you here with me. The Rectifier was almost complete but he needed me to make it functional. When I refused he threatened to find Sam and bring back his head.”
“So you finished building it.”
“Yeah,” Kevin says and gives him the saddest look. “And you were the first Basic he rectified.”
“So you took on the cover stories as your own memories. You don’t remember anything at all.”
“The Rectifier wipes your memories, your will. It turns you into a programmable blank slate. Want a legion of subservient elite soldiers? Done. Turn you into an assassin? Done.
“You’re why fCon City is ready to fall. You assassinated Kernel and Thorne, and without their leaders the city’s on the verge of civil war. And Bostrum... man, he was planning something big. Lord Gibson’s untouchable but a wartime Grid can outlast Bostrum. All Clu needed to do was ensure he’s the power behind the throne.
“Problem was Sam. He’s Jor-he’s the queen’s son, and that makes him a threat. Clu brought him to the city to keep an eye on him and control both me and the queen. Then he staged the kidnapping to set up Bostrum, hired people to take him there, where you’d be waiting. But after he sent you the missive you went off-grid. Disappeared from fCon.”
Tron remembers little of fCon City. He’d been to its port once as part of Paranoid’s crew, and he remembers looking at a map of the Canyon at a hostel there.
“Why was I supposed to be in Bostrum?” he asks. “I thought you said Lord Gibson was untouchable.”
Heavy silence. Then Kevin says, “Yeah, but you weren’t there to assassinate him.
“You were supposed to kill Sam and the people Clu hired, and stage it to make it look like Gibson did it. That way he can declare war on Bostrum.”
20 [The Revelation] || 22 [The Truth Pt. 2]
Fandom(s): TRON: Legacy/The Princess Bride
Characters/pairing: Sam Flynn/Tron; Quorra, Anon, Ed Dillinger, Jr., Ed Dillinger, Sr., Jordan, Clu, Radia, Zuse, Gem, Alan & Lora Bradley, Dumont, Jarvis, Sark, Kevin, the MCP, etc. (Jeebus Christmas, y’all)
Rating: T+
Word count: 995
Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. As this work is an interpretation of the original material and not for-profit, it constitutes fair use. Reference to real persons, places, or events are made in a fictional context, and are not intended to be libelous, defamatory, or in any way factual.
Summary: Horses are lightcycles, ships are Solar Sailers and Recognizers, Prince Edward Dillinger, Jr. of the Grid needs a reason to go to war with Bostrum, and Sam just wants Tron and his father back.
Author's Note: I managed to shrink down 1257 words of exposition to 995. I am the master commander, \o/
Tron sits up and rubs his arms while Kevin steps back from the control panel. His legs are still locked in but he now feels less claustrophobic without something clamping onto his disk. He looks at the interfaces and displays surrounding them; they’re familiar, like he’s been here before.
“Don’t remember much, do you?”
Tron looks at Kevin, at the collar around the User’s neck. Kevin notices and touches its vertical orange circuit. “If I try to leave I lose my head.”
“How...?”
“How am I still alive? How did I end up here?” Kevin limps around the platform, hands behind his back. “Or, how did you forget?”
Tron bows his head. “I don’t understand.”
“That’s because he’s been playing a long game,” Kevin says and he sounds so tired. “Found out after he brought me here just how long.” He pauses, then says, “I never told you the reason why I left you two, did I?”
“You were going to find a better life for us out there. Why? What-it’s Clu, wasn’t it?”
“He was looking for me. Friends in ENCOM City said he’d started up a project I abandoned and he couldn’t complete it without me. He’d no idea where I’d been banished to but he knows how to find people; he’d have found our farm sooner or later. I wasn’t lying, but you were both too young to know the truth.”
He looks at Tron warily, anticipating an outburst, a fist in the face. Another time - five years ago, to be exact - Tron would’ve given him that and more. The past several days have taken a toll on him, though, and he just says, “MCP got you first.”
“Yeah. Hid me from Clu but wouldn’t let me go back home. When I inherited his Recognizer I was on the other side of the world. Took me a couple years just to get near Bostrum.”
“Then you attacked my Solar Sailer.”
“There’s that.” Kevin sighs. “You know, if the Bostrumites weren’t there we could’ve gone home to Sam. Just our luck they were there looking for me.”
Tron knows what he means. It haunted him during his three years with Dread Pirate Paranoid. When the crew asked why the Gridian war minister wanted them - doesn’t he have better things to do than to chase one pirate? - Kevin said it was because they were harboring an ISO. That’s what Tron believed, until Clu was standing on their burning Rectifier, kicking a dead Basic overboard while talking to Kevin like they’re old acquaintances. By then Quorra had escaped, so Clu should’ve had no reason to stick around.
“What do you remember?” Kevin asks.
Tron remembers the soldiers coming in waves, two replacing every one he killed. He fought long after everybody else died or surrendered, knowing he’d never see Sam again. Then a soldier found an opening, sent him flying across the deck. They were on him before he could get back up, dragged him to Kevin’s side as Clu approached.
He remembers the cruel smile, remembers shaking off five soldiers and slashing the war minister across the chest before being hit in the neck. After that, fire. Hands and braces holding him down, clamps on his disk, fire purging him from the inside out as he screamed.
“I’ve been here before,” he finally says. “What is this place?”
Kevin slides his hand along the platform’s edge. “This is the Rectifier, an old wartime project I worked on before the Grid-Arjia War. King Edward wanted to accelerate a Basic’s training in preparation for it but Clu wanted to use its more extreme application. We couldn’t let it happen so we destroyed the blueprints. I was banished for treason.”
“Not executed?”
“The...queen had a hand in that.”
He doesn’t clarify what the Rectifier actually does Accelerate a Basic’s training, he said, but what Tron remembers is agonizing pain. “So what did he do to me?”
“He...” Kevin hesitates. “You were incredible. Killed two-thirds of Clu’s soldiers before they stopped you. Thing was, you impressed him so he spared you and brought you here with me. The Rectifier was almost complete but he needed me to make it functional. When I refused he threatened to find Sam and bring back his head.”
“So you finished building it.”
“Yeah,” Kevin says and gives him the saddest look. “And you were the first Basic he rectified.”
“So you took on the cover stories as your own memories. You don’t remember anything at all.”
“The Rectifier wipes your memories, your will. It turns you into a programmable blank slate. Want a legion of subservient elite soldiers? Done. Turn you into an assassin? Done.
“You’re why fCon City is ready to fall. You assassinated Kernel and Thorne, and without their leaders the city’s on the verge of civil war. And Bostrum... man, he was planning something big. Lord Gibson’s untouchable but a wartime Grid can outlast Bostrum. All Clu needed to do was ensure he’s the power behind the throne.
“Problem was Sam. He’s Jor-he’s the queen’s son, and that makes him a threat. Clu brought him to the city to keep an eye on him and control both me and the queen. Then he staged the kidnapping to set up Bostrum, hired people to take him there, where you’d be waiting. But after he sent you the missive you went off-grid. Disappeared from fCon.”
Tron remembers little of fCon City. He’d been to its port once as part of Paranoid’s crew, and he remembers looking at a map of the Canyon at a hostel there.
“Why was I supposed to be in Bostrum?” he asks. “I thought you said Lord Gibson was untouchable.”
Heavy silence. Then Kevin says, “Yeah, but you weren’t there to assassinate him.
“You were supposed to kill Sam and the people Clu hired, and stage it to make it look like Gibson did it. That way he can declare war on Bostrum.”
20 [The Revelation] || 22 [The Truth Pt. 2]