[OPEN]

[dontpatr0nizeme]

Who: The Freelancers and anyone else
What: Nightmares
When: Through the Nightmare plot
Where: The Mother of Invention
Rating: TBD, potential warning for torture or other really bad things, as RvB Freelancer era isn't very nice

This is the Frigate Mother of Invention. The home base of the UNSC's top secret Project Freelancer. As much as the frigate might have been lively before, now it's full of eerily empty echoing halls, windows into the empty blackness of space, and alarms that seem to be going off all too frequent. The training areas have grown a darker, more sinister air. As for the medical areas and the research labs? You really don't want to go there.

[OOC: Okay, there will be specific nightmare threads within this that I'll be linking on the main post and I will put warnings if any of those might be too bad. If you'd like to join in from outside cast, either hit one of those or start a new thread. We'll be tagging around, and I'll link any new threads you might set up.]

Locker Room (York)  |  Ranking Board (South)  |  Implantation Room (Washington) (Warning, not sure how bad this might be)  |  The Director (Carolina)

Comments

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[youfallback]

[Carolina pauses near the middle of the elevator and nods as she turns to face him. ]

This is... [No, this can't be the training room, but she's supposed to fight here. The dream's telling her that much.] Yeah, this is right.

[encryptedlock]

[But he doesn't want to fight her here. It can't end well. At the same time, he can't think of a good reason why it's wrong. It just is.]

All right. Ready when you are, then.

[youfallback]

[Carolina settles into her usual fighting stance before launching right into an offense. Her leg swings toward him, not a powerful move, but one that could be quickly followed if she needs to.]

[encryptedlock]

[He'll dodge back and return with a swing of his fists. One of her main advantages is her agility - he's good at hand to hand, wouldn't be third ranked if he wasn't, but he wasn't kidding when he said she'd beat him. Doesn't mean he won't put up a fight, even if he was nervous as hell in this room.]

[youfallback]

[Carolina brings up her arms to block as well as try to grab his wrists at the same time. Their sparring session suddenly feels more serious, like there's a lot more weight behind every movement. If she's able to catch his wrists, she'll try to swing a larger roundhouse kick at him.]

[encryptedlock]

[She catches York's wrists easily and knocks him back with the force of her kick. He seems to recover quickly enough, though, and circles around to launch a couple quick jabs at her from the right.]

You don't have to do this, you know.

[He doesn't intend to say the words, but they seem to come out anyway.]

[youfallback]

What? [The words catch her off guard and one of his jabs catches her right in the side, but instead of backing down and asking what he's talking about, it instead seems to fuel her. She unleashes a rapid series of kicks in his direction, unrelenting, and god she feels like she's fighting for her life now.]

[encryptedlock]

[He blocks these a little more easily and tries to catch a leg to attempt to flip her. It might work, but if it doesn't, he'll at least try to rush her to get his advantage.]

All this. The rankings, the blindly following orders--you don't have to dance to their drumbeat.

[youfallback]

[When he catches his leg and attempts to flip her, Carolina does what she can to move with the momentum and lands more or less on her feet after, crouched down where she tries to swing a leg to knock his out from underneath him.]

I need to. [The words rip from her mouth before she can stop them.] I know what I need to do and I'm doing it.

[encryptedlock]

That's what he wants you to think. None of us would respect you any less if you weren't number one, you know.

[Less talking, York, and more paying attention. He has to leap out of the way of the leg sweep, which catches him off balance for a few critical moments she can take advantage of.]

[youfallback]

[And boy will she take advantage of it, swiveling around for another powerful kick as she rises.]

I won't respect me if I'm not number one. [God, that sounds so pathetic to her own ears and she's never said it out loud before, but Texas does shake that confidence. If the Director likes Texas better, then maybe there's a reason, maybe she's not as good as she thought she was. No, if she beats Texas then there's no way she could possibly be anything but the best.]

[encryptedlock]

[The kick knocks him back, and York holds up his hands in surrender. Point to Carolina.]

Really? Doesn't it matter to you what the rest of us think? Me, Wash, even South?

[youfallback]

[When York holds his hands up, Carolina realizes that she almost forgot they were just sparring and not something more serious, even though there's no reason to fight him in the first place. She straightens and returns to her usual stance, albeit a little shaken.] No.

[She shakes her head slowly. A pit opening up in her stomach and tugging her heart down into it. Even now, after all this time, she's still just gunning for the top. Even after she's been a great team leader, someone who has been working day in and day out to get her team back together, she's still just... pathetic. And she hates it. She hates that she's pathetic and she charges right into the next round, more than a little angry at herself, at the Director, at Texas. ]

[encryptedlock]

[York looks down at that answer. His body language suggests it wasn't something he wanted to hear, and as he gets back up he's more slow to respond to her assault than he should be, only blocking her attacks halfheartedly. No, York, fighting like this is going to get you killed some day. So he begins to speed up, riposte a little, and then go for a complex grapple to see if he can catch her in a grip from the back.]

Not even a little?

[youfallback]

[His lackluster blocks somehow just anger her more and she speeds up as much as she can to keep every kick a surprise, but just as she thinks she has him, the elevator starts to move downward and the sudden movement sends her stumbling into that grip. Almost immediately she tries to fight her way out of it and attempts to throw him, but if he holds her tight enough then she won't be able to move much.]

Here, it's all the Director. [But it hits her that they're not actually here, no matter how much the dream is telling her that this place is Project Freelancer. They're in the Castle still, right?] The... The Castle is...

[No, back to struggling.]

[encryptedlock]

[Castle? What...castle.

Oh.

York's grip slackens as he tries to recall what exactly these flashes of a medieval fantasy life are trying to tell him, giving her enough impetus to break free of his grip.]

No, there's--there's more to it than that. He only has power over you if you let him.

[youfallback]

[Carolina takes advantage of that moment and tries to deliver another strong, spinning kick to him.] That's not how it works. I owe him, I owe him everything. You owe him everything, too.

[encryptedlock]

[He's knocked against the back wall at that as the elevator continues its descent. Once again he looks up before he gets up.]

A lot, sure. But I met you before he ever got involved. Try to remember that, yeah?

Even if you didn't have him, you'd still be stuck with me.

[youfallback]

[Carolina does remember, reaches instinctively for the lighter where she keeps it on her person at all times. She brings it out and thumbs across the insignia with a frown underneath her helmet before glancing back up at him. ]

If I didn't have him, we wouldn't have been teammates, York. [Then this lighter might not have meant anything at all. They wouldn't have built up that trust between them, or the love that followed.]

[encryptedlock]

[Oh, she--she still has that. Funny. York could have sworn he had it. He gets back up to his feet, though he doesn't raise his arms to fight again just yet.]

You think I wouldn't have followed you if we weren't?

[youfallback]

I was just someone you met in a bar. [She still remembers that night so clearly, won't forget it any time soon. Handling the lighter gently she shakes her head at him,] This wouldn't mean anything if we weren't teammates. If it weren't for the Director.

[But the fact is that she kept the lighter since that first day they'd met and it'd meant something to her even before she knew they were teammates, before she really got to know him.]

[encryptedlock]

Funny. You still seem to think I wouldn't have followed you.

[The thing is, with his skillset - and his as-of-then undiscovered talent for working with AI - he could have had practically any position he wanted in the military. With ONI, probably (if he could get that honesty thing worked out).]

But we did join, and I don't regret a minute spent with you. We just gotta be careful so we don't end up regretting anything else.

[youfallback]

[Carolina glances back down at the lighter in her fingers before up at him again.]

I won't regret anything. [But even just saying it out loud is almost jinxing it. She tucks the lighter back away. No, she needs to spar, she needs to get better, not have conversations like this. Wasting time would result in regrets.

So she gets back into her stance, watching him.]

[encryptedlock]

[He doesn't say anything to that, just gets back into a battle stance. No regrets, huh?

They should all be so lucky.]

[youfallback]

[Starting off the offense again, she leaps toward him, much farther than she should be able to naturally like someone turned off the gravity. She doesn't really notice his lack of a response as she swings her leg toward him in another kick.]