We went to visit Carolina in the med-bay, and when she woke up, she demanded a match. To say the least: it didn't go well. I mean, at all. What-so-ever.
Everyone with an AI collapsed, gripping the sides of their head and screaming. We watched helplessly as Carolina suffered, then Tex knocked her out to help end her pain.
After the match, I stood in the locker-room as Tex walked in. Nodding to myself and taking a deep breath, I exited hiding and walked over to her.
"I guess someone should apologize, on Carolina's behalf." I rubbed the back of my neck nervously. "I mean... I think she feels a little threatened. I'm sure it's nothing personal, she just-"
"Hey." Tex raised a hand. "Don't worry about it, kid. Carolina and I go way back, we've been at each other's throats for a while. I guess this was bound to happen, eventually... You sure are a nervous one, aren't you?"
"Sorry, I guess I'm just... I'm just worried for Carolina, and everyone else. I worry a lot."
"Is there a particular reason behind that, Alaska?"
"It's Cora. And... Someone I love got hurt, once." I admitted, unable to stop myself. "And, he was never the same again. It was because I couldn't protect him... I guess you never fully let your guard down again, after something that."
"Hey." Tex put a hand on my shoulder. "I get it... I don't remember how, but believe me: I get it."
"Hey." York suddenly walked in. "They think they've found some Insurrectionist hide-out. We've got a mission."
"What?" I asked, surprised. "Without Carolina? Are they crazy?!"
"North's leading." York admitted. "We leave immediately." Tex crossed her arms, annoyed.
"Where for?"
"Sidewinder."
/\
We rode in the Pelican over Sidewinder's surface, and I could already feel the cold creeping through my armor and into my bones. I rubbed my gloved hands together, breathing into them to try and keep my fingers warm.
"Hey, guys, it looks like Alaska's getting cold!" South laughed, and I deadpanned. Really?
"You okay?" North asked, sounding concerned as always. I looked up, sighing and nodding.
"Yeah. Sorry, my home-planet doesn't really get cold."
"Home-planet?" Tex asked, surprised. "You're a colonial?" I nodded, shivering both from the cold and the memories. "What planet?"
"Hey, team!" 47-9er shouted over her shoulder. "We're over the base! Time to start the party!"
"Well..." I stood and readied my gun as the ramp opened. "It feels like a good day to fuck shit up!" We jumped out and landed in thigh-high snow. "Never mind. It is not a good day to be me..."
"Aw, chill out, Snow Queen!" Wash teased, and I glared at him. "Tell you what: when this is over, I'll teach you how to build a snowman... Cora?"
"What?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. Wash reached over and knocked on my helmet five times in a disgustingly familiar beat.
"... Do you wanna build a snowman~?"
"Fuck off." I scoffed, turning to follow North. I didn't see Wyoming and York patting him in the back, Maine shaking his head and face-palming as South laughed at Wash.
/\
When we entered the compound, all Hell broke loose. There were at least thirty of them, all highly-trained. And somehow, I found myself fighting the biggest one all by myself as the others handled the rest of them.
"Okay..." I looked up at the muscled man who was at least three feet taller than me, taking a deep breath as he raised a bazooka, and I raised my shotgun. "I'm so dead."
Suddenly, the man dropped the bazooka and punched the floor, sending me flying back as a shockwave went out. Armor enhancements, either a sonic-pulse like mine or a VERY overpowered strength-boost.
I looked up and rolled out of the way as he leapt up and his feet crashed into where I had just been lying, getting to my feet and firing my shotgun. I struck the man's right shoulder, but he kept coming.
I gasped and let out a shout of surprise as I was thrown through one of the facility's windows, and I landed in the snow. There was a blizzard raging, and I got up as the man leapt out after me.
"So, I'm guessing you're the rookie." The man chuckled, cracking his knuckles. "I'm going to enjoy this, little girl."
"Okay..." I got up, glaring as I raised my shotgun. "You seem to have missed the fact that I'm a Freelancer!" I leapt up and performed a spinning-kick, only for the man to grab my leg and throw me into a cliff-face, and I landed in the snow in a heap. God, that was embarrassing... I looked up as he approached.
"And you seem to have missed the fact that-" Suddenly, someone shot the man in the left shoulder and sent him falling back, a figure in grey standing between me and him. My eyes widened.
"Wash?"
"Get up, Alaska." Wash ordered, and I obeyed, both of us aiming our weapons at the man. "What made you think that you could take this guy?!"
"You act like I had a choice!"
"You should have yelled for me!"
"You were busy!"
"Are you kids done, yet?" The man stood and cracked his knuckles. We looked over at him, annoyed.
"Nope!"
The man charged, Wash and I dodging as he slammed his fist into the cliff, cracks rising up from where the punch made contact. The ice began to fall, and when we looked to try and figure out where to run, we realized that the base we were in had a wall in a short, narrow ravine. We were trapped, only ten feet of space short-wise and forty long-wise to try and escape the falling ice.
"There!" Wash grabbed my hand and pulled me into a cave. My attacker roared in rage and charged at us, only to get crushed just before reaching the cave-entrance. "Yeah!"
"No." I stared as ice blocked the entrance to the cave. Wash and I exchanged glances, our eyes wide behind our helmets as we realized what we'd done. "C-Call Maine! He can blast us out!"
"Right!" Wash nodded, and I heard him activate his radio. "Maine, come in! Alaska and I are trapped in an ice-cave! We need you to... Maine?!" Wash cursed under his breath. "He's not answering..." Wash began trying the others. "North?! South?! Florida?! Wyoming?! Tex?! Anybody?!"
"Wash, stop." I placed a hand on his shoulder. "There may be no radio-signal, but if we activate our suits' emergency-beacons, they can be detected by the Mother of Invention and relayed to the others: no matter what."
"R-right..." Wash nodded, and we activated our beacons. "It looks like we're going to have to try and hole-up here, for a while. It'll take time for the others to finish the fight, stop looking for us, get to the Pelican, find our location, come back, and dig us out."
"Agreed." I nodded. "We should try to conserve our energy. If we get tired and fall asleep..." Wash drew a line across his neck with his finger. "Exactly."
"Alright." Wash leaned against a wall of ice and slid down into a sitting position. "We might as well hang back and relax for a while." I nodded, sitting down next to him and pulling my knees to my chest. "So... You still wanna build that snowman when the mission's over?"
"... Fuck you, Wash."
/\
It may have been an hour or two later when the cold really began to affect Wash and I.
"I-It's freezing." I hugged myself, trying to conserve heat. "W-when are the others getting here?"
"D-don't know." Wash admitted, rubbing his hands together. "B-but no matter what, we stay awake. Got it? If we sleep, we'll die... Guess we should talk about some stuff, keep each other alert."
"R-right." I nodded, shivering. "T-they really need to build better heaters into this armor, huh?"
"Y-yeah. That m-might help... So, you've g-got a brother?"
"Y-yeah."
"M-Michael, wasn't it? T-think he's doing alright?"
"Yeah... H-he's been assigned to fight in those Red vs. Blue battles, so he should be p-pretty safe."
"W-worried?"
"Yeah. M-Michael's kinda special. H-he was never quite right in the h-head... I hope he's o-okay without me."
"I'm sure h-he's fine. If he's anywhere near a-as strong as you are, h-he's probably kicking ass." Thank God for my helmet. I felt my face warm up.
"W-when we played war-games as kids, he'd a-always 'kill' the people on his own team. Besides me. He a-always thought I needed p-protected."
"... He's s-screwed."
"Yeah..." Suddenly, I felt a pair of arms wrap around me from behind, and I was pulled into a embrace. Yep, I was definitely blushing by then. "W-Wash, w-what are you-?!"
"You're a l-lot smaller than I am. You m-may be strong, but you'll die of we don't get help soon... Basic survival training. I'm using my own body h-heat to help you keep warm."
"W-worry about yourself, Wash. I'm f-fine, really."
"No, you're n-not... So, w-what else would you have been if y-you weren't a soldier? I can't see m-myself anywhere else, b-but what about you?"
"... I wanted to be a d-doctor. B-but when my brother decided to be a soldier, I f-followed him."
"Y-you're really protective, huh?"
"I-I guess so." I was getting tired. No, no! I had to stay awake. "Wash... I don't want to d-die."
"I-I know, I know... And you won't, I p-promise."
"W-we just gotta stay awake, right?"
"R-right."
"... Wash?"
"Y-yeah?"
"D-don't fall asleep. I-I don't want to b-be alone."
"I-I won't... You know, t-this is the worst situation ever. Of all t-time."
"Yeah... We're freezing and slowly d-dying, unable to contact anyone, and what's worse: if anyone finds us l-like this, they will never let us live it down."
We both managed small laughs at that, then stopped to conserve energy. My eyes were struggling to remain open..
Stay awake.
Stay awake.
Stay awake.
/\
"Okay, okay..." 47-9er's narrowed eyes scanned a screen on the Pelican. "Where are their beacons?"
"It might be too late." York sighed, shaking his head. "Those kids are good, strong, but they're the smallest on this team. The storm-"
"They'll make it." North scolded, then looked down. "They have to. We've lost C.T. We can't lose them."
"There!" 47-er shouted. "It looks like they're in a cave a mile from here. They must have taken shelter, or maybe they were trapped."
"Well..." Tex stood, gesturing to the exit ramp. "Let's go get them." The Freelancer in black was the first down the ramp, leading the rest into the snow.
/\
"Okay... Why is a r-raven like a writing desk?" I asked. Wash paused for a minute, thinking.
"No i-idea."
"Because P-Poe wrote on both."
"Oh! I g-get it!"
"Do you?"
"... No."
"Edgar A-Allen Poe, a famous author from hundreds of years ago, had to use a w-writing desk instead of c-computers and stuff like that." I began to explain the meaning. "H-his most famous work was the R-Raven."
"No kidding? Neat... Where is that d-damn rescue team?"
"No i-idea." Black spots danced before my eyes. "Wash, are you-?"
"Yeah..." Wash sighed. "It's getting harder to stay a-awake."
"A-any regrets, besides d-dying?"
"D-does going on this mission go under d-dying?" Wash joked. "Worst m-mission ever, of all time... You?"
"I-I try not to dwell on the p-past, on things I can't c-change... But, I-I never expected to go out like t-this. Shot, b-blown up: but frozen? C-come on! W-worse mission ever."
"Of all t-time?"
"Of all time."
Suddenly, everything seemed to slow down. My eyes closed, everything in my brain going fuzzy.
"C-Cora? Cora?!"
/\
"There's the cave!" Wyoming pointed, having been looking at a scanner and realized that they had been buried. "We made it!"
"Let's just get the kids and get the Hell out of here." Tex gestured, actually seeming anxious. "We need to hurry. Maine, blast them out."
Maine nodded and drew the BruteShot, beginning to fire at the ice and blast it away as the other Freelancers watched him anxiously.
"They'll be alright." North kept muttering, his sister placing a hand on his shoulder. Delta appeared in the air next to York.
"Likelihood of survival for Agent Washington: forty-five percent." He announced, sounding a bit sad. "Likelihood of survival for Agent Alaska: twenty-five percent."
"They'll both be fine!" York snapped. "Did that little calculation of yours factor in their goddamn stubbornness?!"
"... Indeed."
/\
Everything was dark, and cold. I couldn't open my eyes...
"She's cold as ice." I heard someone say through the mist. "We need to get her back to the Mother of Invention, now!
"On it! Fasten your seatbelts!"
Why did it feel like I was on a ship? And by the jolts, a Pelican?
"That was smart thinking, Wash. She would have died if you hadn't done what you did... How is he holding up?"
"I'll be fine. Just worry about Cora."
That's when I slipped back into an oblivion.
/\/\/\/\
I woke up lying on something stiff, and I groaned and sat up, raising a hand to the side of my head in response to a headache.
I opened my eyes and looked down at myself to see that I was still in my armor (save my helmet), with heating devices hooked up to the plating. I was on a cot in some sort of hospital. Shaking my head, I turned my head to see Wash sleeping in a chair, his arms on the cot with his head resting on them.
For the first time ever, he wasn't wearing his helmet.
Wash had messy blonde hair and a face that most girls/women back home would swoon over. He must have sensed something off as I stared at him, because he stirred and woke up, opening blue/green eyes.
"Cora?" He asked. "Cora!" I was surprised as Wash hugged me.
"What happened?" I asked as he pulled away. "Where-?"
"We're safe. We're on the Mother of Invention, in the infirmary."
"Thank God... Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. You were the one who almost died, Cora... How do you feel?"
"Cold, and I hurt all over. How long was I out?"
"Three days."
"Yikes."
"... Do you have any idea how worried I was?"
"Wash, I-"
"Don't you ever scare me like that ever again!"
"I'm sorry, okay?!" I demanded, annoyed. Then, I smirked. I had to say it. "... Blondie."
"Wait, what?" Wash slowly paled. "Shit!" I laughed as he took his helmet and slammed it back onto his head. "You never saw that!"
"Nope!" I reached up and stole his helmet, laughing as he tried to get it back. "So, this explains all the stupid stuff you do! I thought the dumb-blonde thing was specifically restricted to women, but nope!"
"Give it back!"
"Nope!"
"Please!"
"Not happening!"
I own nothing besides my OC! Please read, review, check out my other stories, etc. Thanks!