Try so hard but you don't succeed

[rinz_kitty]

Who: Rinzy, anyone
Where: outskirts of Tron City
What: Rinz decides to tackle some Gridbugs. Help please?
Warnings: violence directed at Gridbugs?

Comments

[yorisearching]

It was the skittering noise of the gridbugs that caught Yori's attention first. She approached cautiously, intending to pinpoint the the location and call it in. There were plenty of programs who would do a better job of clearing out a swarm and take more joy in the task than Yori, and she'd been recently reminded of the dangers of not having backup.

But the sight of live circuitry glowing in the mess changed her mind, even if it was red. Yori lit her disk and flung it, in a well-controlled shallow arc around the tiny program, clearing a little space.

The shape plucks at a distant memory, a being from the User world once brought through the digitization process. It hadn't stayed long, nor looked quite like this. "Kitten?" Yori addressed the red and black program doubtfully. It might be small, but if Clu had reprogrammed it as the red suggested, she was not at all sure it was safe to touch. But she needed to get them both away from the gridbugs, the sooner the better.

[ooc: so hi? *shy wave* Your kitty's adorable.]

[rinz_kitty]

The trembling and injured little kitten took advantage of the space and bounded towards the larger Program, hiding behind her legs and mewling in distress. He couldn't fight back like this, couldn't defend himself, and that terrified him.

[ooc: hey there! awww and thanks <3 i love him ever so much :D]

[yorisearching]

Accepting the kitten's scramble for shelter as signaling at least a temporary alliance, Yori concentrated on keeping the braver bugs away and retreated until they began to lose interest.

She kept watch on the gridbug clutch, but spared a glance down at the kitten...program. Whatever its purpose was, it had clearly been injured, ragged tracks of data visible on the black surface.

Yori crouched closer to its level, a bit wary. "Will you let me carry you somewhere safer?" she asked, careful to keep her tone low and comforting. The kitten she remembered hadn't talked, but this was something new, and there was no harm in asking even if it didn't understand. "My name is Yori. I won't hurt you." She held out her free hand.

omu the lulz this is going to inspire once they figure it out...

[rinz_kitty]

Wait. Wait.

Yori?

That name stirred in his memory, but he had no time to consider it. Instead he merely pawed lightly at her hand in reply, shivering all over. He was quite capable of speech, but at the moment he'd rather stay silent. He was pretty sure his voice would be wobbling all over the place.

I'm laughing already. :) Yori might not be so amused.

[yorisearching]

"Okay," Yori murmured, understanding the shiver as an unvoiced Help. "Let's get out of here." She derezzed one last bug and then cut power to her disk, sliding it into dock

yeaaaaaaah rinz won't be either XD

[rinz_kitty]

Rinzy mewled pathetically, glad that at least he was rescued by someone he didn't think he knew know. It was a little difficult to keep up an image of the fierce protector of the Grid as a kitten. Particularly a kitten that had been overwhelmed by gridbugs. It was horribly embarrassing.

The warmth of the Program around him was reassuring and constant, something that he valued very much at the moment. He let out a little mew in reply, rubbing his small head against her lightly.

[yorisearching]

It was too far to walk to the park or a hospital from here carrying the kitten-program, and Yori wasn't sure what kind of reaction the kitten would have to a crowd. Closer, Yori knew, was a makeshift clinic once used by resistance programs and now mostly unused, with the hospitals open to everyone and no reports going to Clu. Yori had helped transfer the refined energy supply to a hospital running low, but the diagnostics should still be there

[rinz_kitty]

Rinzy blinked in surprise, stumbling back a few paces as pain shot through his head. He pawed at his own fur, struggling with himself.

Tron? No...he was...he was Rinzler. Right?

Suddenly a flood of memories that didn't belong to him were drowning him, choking him with the nostalgia. His vision swam and he swayed unsteadily, circuits flickering.

"Yorrrrrri."

[yorisearching]

Tron's name had escaped her without any thought at all, before Yori had even begun to analyze what it meant to find that symbol in red on a kitten-shaped program. The last thing she expected was a response. But that had sounded exactly like her name.

Control. Yori bit her tongue hard, cupped her shaky hands more tightly to prevent another spill, and offered the kitten low-impact energy. "We'll figure this out," she said aloud, not quite sure who to address now. "But first, refill your reserves." Impossible to tell how much of that flicker was from injury or how much from internal code stress, and it worried her either way.

[rinz_kitty]

Rinzy was having difficulty focusing on anything, his CPU processing madly, trying to compute. He knew this Program, knew her quite well. He had fond memories of her.

But they couldn't be his, could they? He hadn't known her, and he had certainly never had a relationship before...had he?

Her voice, albeit uncertain, broke through his confusion. Instructions. That he could understand. That he could focus on. Obediently, he drank up the energy thirstily, his circuits pulsing brighter.

[yorisearching]

"All right," Yori murmured, watching the energy disappear. She shook the last drops from her hands. Her mind was working frantically. With that circuitry, it seemed inarguable that the program was either based on or actually converted from Rinzler's code. Rinzler, not Tron, by color, and reacting in distress not unlike other Rinzlers at the reminder of Tron's memories.

Why in all the worlds Clu would do a thing like this, Yori had no idea. But who else would have the ability or even bother? Perhaps it had amused some version of the glitched admin to have Tron more dependent than ever.

She set her hands slowly on the counter, shunting her fury at that thought away from her voice and posture. "Can you talk?" Because the kitten hadn't before, but she couldn't see another explanation for hearing her name.

[rinz_kitty]

Rinzy sat back on his haunches and watched her as she processed. He somehow found a way to admire her every movement, even the nervous twitches that she was probably completely unaware of. Yori was really very...beautiful.

The thought startled him. It was very unlike him to think in that way of any program. Perhaps he was just overprocessing this...mistaking her perhaps for some confused fragment of memory that did not belong to him in the confusion that followed injury.

At her question he nodded in reply, his ears and tail twitching ever so slightly. He could speak, he just chose not to on most occasions.

[yorisearching]

The definite, if silent, response made Yori sigh in relief. It meant the kitten-Rinzler was capable both of answering, and of understanding.

Which didn't mean the answers were going to be easy to come by.

"I'm confused," she told the kitten, "because I knew a program with your circuitry pattern, and I loved him very much." A certain dry humor crept in. "He was never, to my knowledge, kitten-shaped."

Careful honesty was the only way to get any kind of real trust. And she had no idea how much he might remember, what loyalties to Clu she needed to avoid triggering. "I'd like to look at your code," Yori admitted, "and patch those injuries. I won't make any changes without your permission. Would you let me do that?"

[rinz_kitty]

He purred softly in agreement. "Was not always...kitten shaped."

He hesitated. Yori's words made sense. They answered something inside of him that confused him even more.

He nodded after a short pause. "Yes."

[yorisearching]

"Thank you," Yori said, sincere. She stepped closer to the kitten. The identity disk was in approximately the expected spot, set high on the kitten's spine, though it seemed terribly unnatural either for Tron or for Rinzler to be carrying a weapon he could not use.

Yori slid delicate fingers under the edge, careful not to brush against the lines of raw and fragmented data that stood out under the soft black fur. The disk appeared to be standard, if small. She didn't know whether it had the doubling capability for which Rinzler was so well known.

One benefit, anyway: the kitten-shape didn't feel threatening at all. The Rinzler-kitten probably felt that was a disadvantage, actually, but Yori was grateful not to have to battle old fear.

"If you remember, ah, not being a kitten," she began, struggling for words that made sense of the peculiar situation, "do you remember when that changed?"

[rinz_kitty]

It was agonizing for him to have a weapon that he couldn't reach. It irritated him beyond description.

He shivered ever so slightly at her touch, watching her cautiously.

Rinzy considered her question for a moment. "Was Rrrrinzlerrr one cycle, and kitten the next."