paradisalogs | [OPEN]

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[OPEN]

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)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[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?

[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. ]

[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?

[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.]

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.]

[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?

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.]

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.

[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.]

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

They should all be so lucky.]

[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.]

[York jumps back to avoid the kick, and it's pretty clear the gravity is off now. That's...the opposite of good.

He'll counter with a quick hop forward and a double-fisted punch at her navel.]

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

[As he hops forward, Carolina's already moving and pivoting. She's never been one to stand in one place unless she has to, and when he punches both fists at her, she manages to step just barely to the right. Still, she keeps her momentum moving toward the wall, planning on him following her that half a step to possibly put him close enough. If he does, she'll try to take two steps up the sliding metal as a gainer to a back flip that she hopes will land her knees on his shoulders.]

[Of course she knows his fighting style well enough to predict his movements. Of course she does. So he'll grunt under her weight when she lands, crumpling to the ground. He isn't giving up yet, though, attempting to throw her to the ground with him or, failing that, to at least jab up to hit her with his fists.]

I have to do this.[Carolina will try to dodge those jabs, but while she's trying to pin him, she's pretty much stuck in one place and takes a couple direct hits to her face. One lands on the bottom of her jaw, knocking her head back and disorienting her for a moment.]

You think you have to.

[He'll take the disorientation as an opening and try to flip her over so he can be on top (no, not that way).]

I'm not your enemy. I never have been. You gotta try to remember that.

[The shift in position puts her even more on edge than she'd been before and suddenly she feels like she's not in power anymore. She strikes up toward him with a couple punches and then a double-footed kick, trying to knock him off.]

[And of course it works, and York starts drifting up in the sudden lack of gravity.]

Carolina....

[Carolina rises up with a sweeping kick aimed right at his chest, unable to see past beating him and impressing the Director and making sure she's the best she can be right now.]

[Yep, just going to float away. He seems to be knocked out...or finally waking up from the nightmare.]

[Carolina watches as he fades away from her view and slowly so does the rest of the Mother of Invention and the metal all around her, leaving her in the cold darkness before she suddenly wakes up. Surrounding her in bed is warmth, soft sheets, the breath of someone else quietly filling the air around her, and she sits up as quickly as she can. Her hands feel around for York, trying to find him in the sheets and for a moment she panics when she doesn't, but then her fingers bump against his side.]

[He feels sweaty, almost clammy to the touch. The enforced sleep hasn't been at all restful to him, and at her touch he snaps awake, breathing heavily for a few moments before he takes a gulp of air and tries to steady himself. Delta's presence helps immensely with this, as it always does. Breathe, York. This is Paradisa, Delta's here inside your mind, and Carolina is alive and next to you and not crazy.]

What--

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