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( MEMES ) TEST DRIVE >> 003.
Like it or not, you've been dragged from your world into the sanctum. It's a pretty nice city, all things considered--sci-fi, high-tech, glamourous.... Except, of course, for the giant dome encircling it, and the threat of glitching, contaminated zombies at your door. Looks like humanity's built itself a fortress that looks suspiciously like a cage, too.
The object of this meme is to get people familiar with the world of the Sanctum, and to try to see if their characters would fit in a sci-fi utopia such as this. Here are your options:
1. Intro: Waking Up. Make your intro post, folks. You wake up in a strange place, and get a strange transmission to go with it. What are you going to do?
2. Failed Upgrade. One of your upgrades is more wrong than right. How will you cope? What exactly is different? Who will help?
3. Mission outside the dome. You've come under fire. The strange things are coming towards you. Luckily, you have your suit, your teammates, and a lot of firepower. Or are you stranded on your own, looking for someone to come to the rescue? Perhaps you're the rescuer.
4.Infected Something bit you. Now you're turning into them, and all you can hear is a high-pitched squealing in your head, like a frequency you just can't quite hear. Do you tell your loved ones, or do you wait? Do you trust your doctor?
5. Military training Everyone's got to start somewhere. You're training the green folks, maybe you're one of the newcomers yourself. Maybe you haven't even touched a gun before in your life. Either way, you'd better start now.
6. Chance encounter makin' my way downtown walking fast, faces pass--you get the point. You bump into someone! Shopping, or strolling in a park? Maybe just lunch in a cafe?
7. Glory to the Network! Network post. Text with general queries, say what you have to say to the entirety of the whole city.
8. Wildcard: Whatever you want. Mix and match, switch and swatch, make something else up entirely!
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Still.
She watches and waits, their audience ignored as she watches that familiar roll of broad shoulders. It's easy enough to make yourself up to look like someone else - cosmetics, surgery, even holograms - but all of that is surely too much effort to keep her off her guard. She doesn't know what that shrug means, and the knot behind her ribs, behind her heart is one part confusion, one part annoyance (so like him) and one part dull and distant and something she doesn't want to look at too closely. Carolina's outlived them all, save for Washington, in spite of everything thrown into both their pathes.
And now she wonders what Wash would think to hear, to learn, that somewhere out in space, York lives -- and North and South too, once she learn's they're here, along with a clusterfuck of unanswered questions to go right along with them.
(And a small part of her fears, for Wash, for his ragtag crew of well intentioned idiots, for the situation left behind on Chorus.)
If Carolina's overly defensive to start for her, especially for her, it's not because she's tired. York's moving and Carolina is waiting, watching his charge in with narrowed eyes. She's weighing and measuring his attack, watches for his shots, lets him --lets him!-- get in close to make that follow-up shot to the earlier blow she took. Because once in close, she retaliates, a flurry of fist blows and strikes that are distributed evenly, before left leg kicks up at his right side.
She knows she should go for his left side, knows she can end this quickly, but it's been too long since she's had a match where her own life wasn't at stake, with someone she's missed more than words can say. Right now, they're an East Coast Hurricane, barely controlled energy storming across the mats, and if they're drawing more of an audience than most spars require, Carolina doesn't seem to notice. ]
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No one else needs to know. Hell, she doesn't either and there is nothing, absolutely nothing he wouldn't do to take that burden off her shoulders. But he can't go back and get unshot, can't fix all the fuckups, can't warn anyone. But he can take the blow to the right and roll with it, push back with a low grunt and keep knocking forward. Swing for her sternum, focus on the core.
He never could bear to try to swing for her face. He'd say it's because she was so pretty- it was because he knew he'd never be able to land a hit. Why shoot for the impossible?
Better to focus on what he can, get her blocking get her backing up so he can get her off balance. He's fresh. He's rested. He's not warmed up at all and it's gonna bite him in the ass later but this is- familiar. He knows this ache, he knows her hits as they come, knows where they're going to hit and what color the bruises will be tomorrow and he's grinning right through it. Because it hurts. Because it's real. Because he gets one last shot at seeing her.]
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But Carolina had, finally, made her peace with it. Or, at least, she thought she had.
It seemed like there had always been some element of dance between them - they met in a nightclub, after all. And here, trading blows in the milita base, falling back into an old rhythm as familiar to her as breathing, Carolina realises that a part of her had never really gotten over the loss of the partner she'd made in him, the one who'd always been several steps behind, keeping up with her whatever the challenge had been thrown their way, or in spite of it.
She's aged, he doesn't look any older than the recordings Epsilon saved for her; she doesn't feel pretty, hasn't cared about such things in years, and can't imagine he'd see anything in her now. Besides- it was York they'd always brought along for his good looks. Wasn't that how it had gone, once upon a time?
His strikes grow more desperate, adding a reckless edge to their strength, and she can feel the blows against this new suit more keenly than if he'd struck bare flesh alone. Carolina's own attacks get faster accordingly, time and distance between them having failed to slow her down at all; she's dipping and weaving with each feint, snapping one leg up to kick out at his left knee. But when York next rushes in, Carolina rolls with the blow, turning her shoulder to his chest and extending her arms to catch his own, intent on turning his own momentum against him. Success will lead into flipping him up and over, to be pinned down on the mat. If she can.
Perhaps this time neither of them will run away. ]
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Could he have avoided it? He's not sure. But he knew that he was going to end up on the mat one way or another at the start of this. And it's better that he ends up there in a way he knows how to take. THe wind's still knocked out of him like it always is and it leaves him in a half incredulous laugh. He's glad to be down, glad for this bracket of familiarity in the middle of so much uncertainty and insanity. Held down like a fly under a needle he's got no option of running. Flushed and breathless he's grinning up at her because goddamn, he's missed her. Missed this.]
Looks like you win. Again.
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She hopes York doesn't mind that she prefers this particular victory, this particular outcome, to the last time.
Her stomach twists to hear that laugh as she flips him over, to see that familiar grin staring up at her, and green eyes are dark with something like wonder as Carolina stares down at York, keeps York pinned to the mat long enough to meet match requirements. Perhaps even for a little longer than is strictly necessary. If she's a little breathless herself, it's not purely from exertion alone, for all he gave her far more challenge than the militia men here. ]
... York.
[ There's questions and emotion wrapped around the way she says his name, and the corners of her mouth begin to curve up in answer to how he's looking at her. She's missed him too, and it helps that he seems so pleased to see her, doesn't seem to hate her.. She'd have understood, if he did, she deserved no less, but.. Lips part, pause, then close again, and her head tilts just so as she considers what to say, something, anything else--
--And then her next (last) challenger is up and still being a mouthy idiot, and the disgruntled look that crosses her face is just so resigned. Really? Really?
She shifts then, suddenly aware of exactly how close they are, just how she was straddling him to keep him pinned down, and Carolina pushes up into a stand position at once. Then, extends her hand, offering it to York. ]
Give me two minutes?
[ Though really, Carolina only needs the one. ]
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[Like he didn't just get his ass handed to him. Like he's not pinned under her in a way that for anyone else would be considered suggestive but for them is just another tuesday. Is it teusday? It feels like a tuesday. Doesn't matter. He's grinning like an idiot and she's just staring down at him and not only is she alive? She looks older. She survived. She made it through, made it out and that? THat makes his own fuckup with Tex worthwhile. That makes every bullet count. If she's not a raging mass of impotent fury then it worked.
They got it handled. THey got closure. That's all he needs.
Well standing would be nice too but, eh, he'll take what he can get. He pats her thigh while he waits for her to make up her mind, blinking over at the jackass.]
Dude we're having a moment here, okay? You want me to find your long lost whoever and heckle them when you see them next? Do you? I'll do it.
[Kids these days, he swears. Up goes Carolina and he follows because he always follows her and he's not so dumb as to try a kick up when he's sore as hell already.]
If it doesn't take you thirty seconds you're buying me a drink.
[He walks out of the ring with a smirk, patting the idiot on the shoulder.]
Good luck sucker.
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Had this been two months, three months ago for her, York would have seen the impotent rage that had directed her life for literal years. Later, she'll decide not to tell him, to not explain how she wasted so many years, how she'd gone to such dark place and the cost she'd almost paid for it.
No, she'll keep this memory instead, the faintest huff of air forming a long-disused chuckle in her throat as York heckles back. He would too, she knows it, if only because it was interrupting this; York would have let it roll off his back otherwise.
She canted her head to the right, rolling a shoulder as he stepped away. Always following her, except the one time he didn't, and look how that had worked out for them-- no. No point looking back. Not when he's making wagers now, and Carolina simply raises her eyebrows at him. ]
Is that right. [with what, she doesn't say, asking instead:] And what do I get if I do?
[ The 'sucker' walks forward with far too much swagger and very little sense as York exits the ring, and Carolina's face loses its humour in favour of that fierce green-eyed stare. He's so busy talking, gesturing, before bringing fists up defensively.
She lets him waste the first 10 seconds with meaningless jabs, dodging them easily. ]
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[THere's some muttering about how she can't be that fast, how York has to be nuts if he thinks she can take down one of the miltia's trainees so quickly but he just shrugs, crosses his arms, and leans against the wall to watch the woman work. There's always been a misplaced sense of pride in him whenever she doe ridiculously well. Not like he's ever had a hand in it outside of sparring. Maybe because they joined together. Maybe because he just feels better knowing the person that has his back can take on damn near anything.
DOesn't matter much. He's just staying. Smiling. Waiting out the next ten seconds it'll take Carolina to bust the man down to his base components and hand them to him on a platter.]
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At least the overmuscled moron sparring with her now has realised that trash talking Carolina isn't working. He certainly seems to have taken York's words for insult, too: he drives himself forward across the mat and lashes out at her.
He's overreaching, and in that moment, she has him cold.
Carolina ducks, a flash of red as she easily drops beneath the flight of his fists, slides out of his path. And then she's leaping up, spinning sharply into a roundhouse kick that connects with full force against the man's neck. Down he goes. And he doesn't get up.
But at least he's still breathing? ]