[IC] Before RvB there was; Project Freelancer

[datadogie]

Ruby holsters her M7 when the horn is sounded, and smiles to herself. "Heck yeah, that was fun!" She looks around, then walks out of the training room. "That was fun." She says, strolling to her room. On her way, she put away all of her weapons, only taking an M6D with her to her room. Ruby cocks her head when she enters it. "Wow. This looks strangely like home." She says, laying on the bed and putting her hands on her stomach, lacing her fingers together. "I can't believe I ended up here. In Project Freelancer." Ruby takes off her helmet, places it beside her bed, lays her head down on her pillow and closes her eyes, and begins to think of her past life."Mom, if you knew where I was right now, you'd be proud." She smiles.
After five minutes, Ruby opens her eyes, and stretches, getting off of her bed. She picks up her helmet, and clips it onto her waist. "Time to get some chow," she says, beginning to jog to the cafeteria, her long, straight, blonde hair stretching out behind her as she jogs there.

[Heroic]

West found himself in the mess hall after only a short time of wandering. "I'm not really hungry. But... I'll definitely be coming back for dinner." He said, trying to guess the approximate time he'd be hungry. He left the mess hall and continued to wander some more, and he found himself by the ship's armory. With a nod from the quartermaster, Garret entered the armory. "Holy smokes..." He said in awe. "You know, most people walk in here and see just guns. I see explosions. Explosions everywhere..."

West browsed the inventory, coming to a stop at a particular sniper rifle. "Do my eyes deceive me? Or art thou an angel amongst mortals?" He picked up this particular sniper rifle, "The new Sniper Rifle System 99-S5 Anti-Matériel. Most advanced rifle to hit the UNSC shelves. He picked it up and took it out to the Quartermaster to check it out, and with the Quartermaster's permission, he slapped it onto his back and went on his merry way. "You and I are gonna get along mighty fine."

West continued to wander, anticipating his name to be called last. He bet himself that they were going to go in alphabetical order, and he will probably be last. "I really need someone to talk to..." He mouthed.

[MaskedHeroZ]

Arizona froze, he just heard someone talking to themselves in the hallway, or rather the one he was about to round. Eyes going wide beneath his helmet, he pressed himself against the wall as close as he physically could. This was bad, he was expecting to just walk by people, groups of people that is. Too preoccupied with their own chit-chat to really pay attention to him wandering, if someone was alone that meant they probably wanted to be alone or were looking for someone to talk to. There was no way he was going to be that person.

Daring to peek, he could see they had not moved position just yet. He vaguely recalled the man being the sniper during the training exercise. Just of course it had to be him, the universe was laughing it's head off just about now. Trying to calm himself down, Arizona took in a deep breath. He just needed to walk pass the guy and look like he was busy. There was no pressure to that, he excelled at ignoring others and being ignored by them. This would be a piece of cake.

Taking his first step around the corner, Arizona stared straight forward and began to move.

[Argetlam350]

Montana had gone wandering around the halls, having most of those on board seem to avoid him like the plague. Perhaps it was due to his size. He wasn't that much taller then most of the others part of the program, maybe a few inches at most above the second tallest but he was indeed built like a tank and fought like one too. All in all though, it didn't matter to him, the only friends or rivals he wanted to make were with those who were considered to be some of the best of the best fighters that were here for Project Freelancer.

He had been about to leave from the floor he was on when a sudden glint movement on the other side of the hall caught his attention. He had been to zoned out in the training area to pay attention to all the others around him fighting but seeing another member of Project Freelancer immediately had him interested and he stalked after wandering partially what her skills were for she was no where near as tall as he was nor built like some of the others yet if she was here she had to be good at something. The look in her eyes made him more determined to try and talk to her rather then turn him away. It was a look he himself had carried a lot though his helmet was on and no one would noticed. He was either going to have a conversation or butt heads with this person.

[Heroic]

Garret saw Arizona walking down the hall in front of him. "Hey!" He shouted, and was about to raise his hand to wave when he saw the soldier's very blatant body language. The guy was looking straight forward, and was honestly doing that awkward powerwalk thing that people did when they didn't want to talk to anyone. He obviously didn't want to meet West, so West let him go on without stopping him. When he got to the hall intersection that Arizona had just crossed, he shouted down to him, "You know, you're gonna have to talk to us eventually! I'm really not that bad of a guy!" He waited a moment for a response, then decided that if the guy kept walking, then he would just go on his way as well. If every other new recruit was antisocial besides him, West felt he may get pretty lonely around here.

[cerozer0]

Had she done well, did she succeed, did she mess up? Louisiana walked briskly through the halls, black clouds filling her vision as she became more and more anxious over the coming results. Her blue helmet hung limply in her right hand, hanging just from the tips of her fingers, and the rest of her armor clunked and shook with each stomp she took across the metal floor. Countless white suited worked caught sight of her face and quickly moved out of her way, murmuring once they thought she was just out of sight.

’Don’t are, don’t care. Dammit, I need a drink, or a smoke, or a nap. Dammit, dammit…’ Louisiana sighed loudly then, running her free hand through her slicked down hair, allowing a few strands to free themselves from the mound of pale yellow. A nap would be best, and… She had been so close. So very close to the closed door of her room that would have been a nice, calming experience after such a sloppy training session, but eyes had caught her just as she was about to enter the final hall. At first, her mind wondered if she should simply keep on moving and ignore the eyes, but as she followed through with that plan she realized the person simply follow, like a puppy. Or stalker. Eventually, Louisiana turned, gray eyes narrowed venomously as she glared up at the hulking Freelancer. Of course, his size had caught her off guard momentarily, as he was a simple skyscraper compared to her, but she didn’t allow her face to show such a weak emotion.

“What,” she hissed, hand quickly brushing a strand of pale hair away from her eyes as she took another step closer to the tall recruit, “do you want?” Louisiana glared for a moment longer, then blinked, quickly recalling see this huge guy on the battle field moments ago. He was a fucking tank, obviously, shown by his height, but she vaguely remembered him just ramming into a huge hoard of the machines. Perhaps challenging someone like him wasn’t a good idea with the state of her head and shoulder at that second, but right now she was too nervous and angry to care much. Just goes to show, agitation wouldn’t get her very far in a fight which may require wit and energy.

[Argetlam350]

Montana looked down at the other Freelancer, a smirk in his helmet hearing the woman talk back to him. She had some guts he had to admit, even if he knew nothing yet about her but she was the first person to try and get in his face here and he could respect that about someone.
"The Director said to mingle so I figured I might as well start somewhere and just happened to find you," he said bluntly ",No need to go and bite heads unless you want to start a fight, personally I think it would make things more fun on the ship and all but I doubt the Director would like us damaging it. Also the codename is Montana."

He did find the size difference between him and this Freelancer somewhat funny in an odd way, though now seeing her up close she did seem capable of handling herself, at least judging by her glare anyway. Perhaps she was based more on being agile and quick then being a tank like he was. Plus the fact she had guts and an attitude that seemed to tell others to piss off. He definitely was going to like her as a comrade, someone to at least be able to relate to in some sense.

[MaskedHeroZ]

Arizona stopped in his tracks as West addressed him, he had been so close to avoiding conversation, but his peer just had to talk to him. Was it some cosmic law that stated he would never find joy in anything? Did someone despise him that much? He didn't know, but that didn't stop him from blaming said unknown force for his luck.

'You're not a bad guy, just a very annoying imbecile.' Arizona thought as he let out the most over-dramatic sigh he could muster while still wearing a helmet. Reluctantly turning to face West, taking in many of his details for future reference. He didn't look like much, at least not to him. What was he expecting from some dumb sniper though? Admittedly not much.

"What is it you want to talk about?" He asked bluntly, just really wanting to get whatever the other Agent had in mind out of the way. "I'm not going to start gushing over my life story to you, if that's what it is." He added as a precaution, knowing full well how new recruits tried to bond in such a way. He wasn't going to go through that again, not ever.

[Heroic]

"Life story?" He asked, bewildered. "Clearly you take me as some generic, sad sack rookie who doesn't know what he's doing." West said. Of course, West wanted to talk, but he honestly wanted to get to know his fellow teammates as teammates, not as people. "At most, I just want to talk to you about combat."

West closed his eyes in aggravation under his helmet. Of all the people he could have chosen to speak to, it had to be the one whose mindset was to be antisocial. Then again, maybe all of his fellow recruits were like that. Who knew? Probably just the Director and his bueno muchacho the Counselor. Of course, he'd have no way of knowing that until later.

Maybe West could get this guy to warm up to him, though. Maybe if he just didn't force conversation on the guy, he wouldn't think so badly of him. "But I don't mind if you don't wanna be bothered right now. I don't want to bother you if you don't want to be bothered."

[MaskedHeroZ]

"It's a little too late for that." Arizona deadpanned, ignoring the other man's attempt to distance himself from a rookie, taking a more relaxed position than he originally was holding. He wasn't going anywhere it seemed. "I might as well talk to one of you anyways, better to get it out of the way than keep wandering around pretending I'm busy. "

It had to be the sniper though, he couldn't stress how much that fact irked him. It could be worse of course, he could have ran into the boisterous buffoon who charged into the last training exercise without stopping to even finish talking. Now that sent shivers of disgust down his back, so he decided to just stick with this bad situation, instead of seeing how it could have been worse.

"So, what do you want to know teammate? My combat history? How I kill people?" He asked, putting a monotonic emphasis on the word 'teammate', as if it pained him to even say the word. It didn't of course, but he was give some sort of indication that being in this man's presence was killing him slowly. Something he couldn't convey visually with his helmet still on.

[Kralion]

Alaska left for her quarters after leaving her guns in the armory, except for her knife, as she hummed a song while walking at a brisk pace. The automatic door opened with a hiss as she stopped in front of her room and, she had to admit, she liked what she saw. The wallpaper of the Alaskan flag was probably a bit of an overkill though. What did those eight random stars mean anyway?

She flopped down on her bed, looking around the room for one last crucial detail. No mirrors. Perfect. Unfortunately, there was probably one in the bathroom. She would have to deal with that one later. She slowly removed her helmet, quickly setting it down. As she moved the flowerpot with forget-me-nots to the side she grabbed some headphones laying on the desk, noticing they were connected to a music player with some songs already installed in it. She decided to try her luck and pressed play. Old, exciting music from Mars started flooding into her ears. She couldn't help but crack a smile.



She quickly put her helmet back on and left her room. The training excercise had taken a bit out of her and she decided to get something to eat. To eat later at her room of course. She began whistling the song she had heard back in her room before she noticed one of the other Freelancers also heading towards the cafeteria. She couldn't tell who it was, but the long blonde hair and her figure told her that it was one of the females. She sped up for a second to catch to her before speaking "Whats up girl?" She said with a friendly tone.

[Heroic]

West cocked his head in utter disbelief. "Woah, man. Okay, look." West was talking with hand motions now. "I genuinely want to get to the bottom of... Whatever problem you have with me. Whether you want to think it or not, I am not the Lone Wolf kind of guy. Yes, even though I do tend to be alone during combat. It's just a sniper's job." He was trying to convey to Arizona that he wasn't at all the kind of guy to be hostile towards. Heck, Garret didn't ever dislike anyone unless they unreasonably started beef with him, and if West didn't mediate now, that's where this relationship was going.

"I don't want you to hate me before you get to know me." West stated as he walked toward Arizona. "Let's start with a friendly formal greeting." He held out his hand when he got to Arizona. "I'm West Virginia, but you can call ne West."

[Nytefall]

Washington woke up with a jolt sitting up right in his room. All he could remember was the Director calling him to his office then nothing. As his brain slowly began to reboot he remembered taking the pills and more importantly what the Director had said.

"Good morning Washington, I thought it would be best if we got you done first."

Washington cocked his head. "Get me done first? What do you man?"

The Director stood up and looked out his window it oversaw the canteen where a lot of the agents had congregated. "Your A.I. we will be implanting it into you shortly. However you need to sign this waver to agree to us cutting a small part of your brain out. Don't worry it's nothing your miss or notice." Pushing a paper and pen across his desk Washington took it in his hands and read over it quickly. He already had it in his mind that he wanted this A.I. so he did not hesitate to sign the paper. The director smiled. Pushing a cup with 3 pill in it. Washington took of his helmet and swallowed the pills taking the glass that the Director had just filled with water and downing it.

The pill's effects took hold and Washington had slumped in his chair. Now hear he was in his room, maybe the A.I. thing hadn't worked. Getting up he massaged his pounding head. As he got up he noticed a movement on the end of his bed. Reaching for his gun he trained it on the end of his bed. "Come out, or you're gonna be in a lot of pain" A small blue replica of himself appeared. It had exactly the same armour on as he had but was no larger a Pint glass.

"Hey there, sorry I didn't mean to scare you. My name is Epsilon." Washingtons eye were wide open as the blue man disappeared and reappeared on his shoulder. "The Director implanted me inside a small chip located at the back of your head. You can if you wish remove me whenever you want. However the Director says that's a bad idea. It wont hurt your or anything, it's just The Director wants us in your heads all the time. Hey but look at this!" A blue shield appeared in front of Washington making him jump out of bed. The Shield covered the whole front of his body.

Washington smirked as he put his armour back on. "Nice. Epsilon. This is the start of a beautiful relationship."

[datadogie]

As she walked, Ruby admired what she saw. The ship looked so high-tech to her, and she felt like she could just have fun strolling the halls for the next few days. "This place is cool." She says to herself, before hearing a voice behind her. She turns to see that another Freelancer, a female one, had caught up to her. Ruby smiles at the other Freelancer, her blue eyes looking over the other person's armour.

"Hello." Ruby says, a shy but kind smile on her face. "That training session was fun. Except the fact that there were no automated turrets to take control of, or systems to hack. Otherwise, I enjoyed myself. I'm Ruby, by the way. Agent Kansas." Her smile widens a bit. "What about you? What's your name? How are you holding up?" Ruby asks, taking a glance ahead of her and seeing that the cafeteria was ahead.

[cerozer0]

Louisiana slowly lowered her glare as Montana began discussing his reasons for approaching her. Sure, following her was unneeded, but he didn't seem to have any ill wills in mind. A conversation was a perfectly human thing to look for, though if that was really true then Louisiana couldn't really be that human in the end. Finally, her stormy eyes closed and then opened, revealing a much calmer gray as she rose a hand to fix the back of her hair,

"Er, yeah, I suppose it's best to stay on the Director's good side." She spoke with a slight hesitance, eyes focusing on Montana's feet, "being on his good side probably means being higher up on that leader board." Louisiana smirked slightly at the idea of a ranking system, finding the competition fun,

"A big guy like you would easily be near the top. You look pretty strong." She noted, eyeing him up and down quickly. Sparring with him wouldn't be very fun, but she could already begin to notice some weak points in that huge body of his. Louisiana sighed absentmindedly, staring directly up at Montana's helmet before glancing away again. She was currently trying to wrap her mind around the idea of "trust", while at the same time trying to ride her head the slowly worsening headache.

'Just hold out a bit longer. Talking isn't so bad...

"By the way, my code name is uh," she wet her dry lips, cracking a forced smile, "Louisiana, Agent Louisiana."

[MaskedHeroZ]

Arizona sighed once more, a headache already forming from hearing this guy talk. He really should have just kept walking. "Well, aren't you just a a special little snowflake." He snapped as West tried to 'figure out' his problem with him. "You ever take into consideration that I just don't like people? I mean, honestly, it's a little sad that you actually care about what I think about you."

Of course, he didn't mention his stigma against those who used Sniper Rifles as well as his stance on them being cowards. He wouldn't say it to the man of course, he didn't have any right to know. Still, he might as well humor 'West', if only to end this conversation. He didn't want to have to worry about friendly fire on any of the missions either. Taking the outstretched hand and doing a quick forceful shake, before letting go.

"You can call me Arizona, I doubt you'll find much in doing so. But hey, at least you know it now."

[Heroic]

West's eye twitched underneath of his helmet. Of course this guy was going to be like this, what else did he expect? "You know what? Maybe you don't like people. But I've tried being nice to you despite your horrid attitude. I gave you the chance to not talk to me, but because of something in your little ego or something, you had to turn keep talking anyways and be such a-" West stopped himself and took a deep breath. This was the last thing he wanted. "You know what? Just here this. I get you don't like people. Heck, I even respect it. People have seen things, Lord knows I have. When Reach was glassed, I was both lucky... and unlucky. But you know what? No matter how isolated or jerkish you want to be, I will not let you walk over me. Especially if the mere fact that I'm a sniper has anything to do with it. So I'm going to go now, since I pretty much know you want to be alone."

And West turned to walk away. But then he stopped several steps away and turned his head back to Arizona. "But remember one thing. We're a team now. And there is more to being a team than just being on the same side."

He slowly turned his head an proceeded back to the mess hall.

[Kralion]

Alaska smiled at Ruby from inside her helmet. "Well, the director did say to not refer to each other by our names anymore...But mine's Ana. Freelance codename Alaska." When she asked how she was holding up she looked down at her armor. The robots punched hard, and there were a bit of dents here and there, but all she did was chuckle. "I'm alright. Training sessions like that are always fun, but I can't wait to see what we'll see next on the field."

On their way to the cafeteria the two freelancers were stopped by a man whose uniform beared several red crosses. "Agent Alaska and Kansas?" He asked as he looked down on his PDA. Alaska nodded and the man sighted in relief. "Thank god, this ship is big enough to spend an entire day just looking for two people. Anyway, you two ladies are now scheduled for surgery ASAP. Please report as soon as possible to the medbay so we can get this done with, alright?" He didn't even wait for an answer before running away towards another errand. Alaska shrugged and began walking towards the medbay, turning around to look at Ruby. "You coming or will I see you at the cafeteria later?" She asked.

[datadogie]

Ruby nodded in agreement with Alaska when she said training sessions were fun. "I kinda agree, they are quite fun." She smiles. In her head, she was wondering about the names. She felt like she didn't want to call the other Freelancers by their codenames, but she obviously had to. She looked down at her own armour, and then took her helmet to her head, looking at it as if it was her first time seeing it. She felt happy to be in Project Freelancer, but was it worth it?

When Alaska and Kansas were stopped by the man, Kansas listened carefully. She was going to get surgery? Was it her AI? Was she going to get it already? As Alaska began to walk off, and asked her if she was coming with her to the medbay or seeing her at the cafeteria later, Kansas quickly replies "What reason is there to not go? May as well get it out of the way." Ruby grins, and she feels her stomach grumble. "Okay, maybe my stomach says otherwise, but yeah, I'm coming." Ruby says, quickly following her new friend. "I wonder what the surgery is for. Probably for the AIs. If it is, I can't wait. What do you think your one will be like, Alaska? I think mine will turn out great." Kansas smiles.

[Kralion]

Alaska shrugged. She had never had much contact with A.Is, but if the whole aim of the project was to test how effective elite soldiers could be with A.Is it was worth a shot at least. Right? "Dunno. I don't even know what A.I are available, but I think we're supposed to be implanted with the one that fits our personality and combat style the best...So if there is any that are backflipping, wall-punching badasses, I call dibs!" She said with a laugh.

Soon after the two freelancers reached the medbay. The doctors gave them the form for allowing them to go through with the operation. Alaska barely read through it before quickly signing. She was then given the same pills and glass of water as Washington, but instead of drinking it in one go she hesitated. She kept her helmet on as she turned to the doctor. "You know what, how about I drink this in the surgery room? Save everybody time?" The doctor looked at her with a raised eyebrow, but shrugged. "See you later Kansas." She said as she walked away at a brisk pace, not even waiting for her to answer.

Once in surgery Alaska took a deep breath and quickly removed her helmet, her eyes still closed. She had ordered the surgeons to activate the metal shutters on all the windows, even if the surgery would take just a few seconds. She took one last breath before taking the pills, dropping like a sack of bricks on the surgery table soon after.

When Alaska opened her eyes once more she was back on her room. Her hands quickly reached for her head and sighted in relief as they felt the metal touch of her helmet. The throbbing headache was a bit bothersome though. She shook her head but that only made her hiss in pain. Okay, no more moving now. She lied down for a few seconds, the metaphorical hammer pounding against her skull slowly stopping as she took several deep breaths. Alright, she was fine now.

And that was when she noticed the small, red person doing backflips on the edge of her vision. She blinked and looked at her desk. Whomever the little guy was, he sure knew how to move with style. He did backflips, frontflips, cartwheels and even somersaults. Alaska looked at him fascinated until he finally noticed her. "Hi!" He said with a child-like voice. "My name is Chi! What's yours? You wanna play?" He said, extremely excited. Alaska only blinked again before smiling slightly. "My name is Alaska, Chi. Are you my A.I?" she asked as she held out her hand for him. The little red programme rushed foward, jumped and did a roll as she landed on her open palm. "Yeah! We're gonna be the best buddies you and me! Forever and ever!" He said as he jumped up and down before he remembered something. "Oh right! The Director told me you also have super-duper agility powers or something like that! You should check them out!" he announced cheerfully. Alaska's smile grew. Well, now she had to try...Right after her headache stopped killing her.