legionmissions | MURDERWORLD [mod plot] [Reunion/Rescue]

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MURDERWORLD [mod plot] [Reunion/Rescue]

Who| Everyone who wants in
What| The reunion/rescue of the folks in Murderworld
Where| The Temperate Zone
When| Day 3, at the very end of the arena
Warnings/Notes|

Thanks to the heroes that broke into Arcade's control room, the arena was officially over, and now that the Science Police and Legion had been contacted, people were being gathered up in an area in the temperate Zone and being extracted by portable threshold gates. A first aid station had been set up to triage those who needed immediate emergency care and patch up what injuries they could to hold people over until they got home.

Grief counselors were already on standby to help the Legionnaires and Harrubian dissidents and their families deal with the crisis they had just faced.

Arcade had already been taken away by the Science Police to face trial for multi-murder, and while some of the raw footage of the arena had already been uploaded to the UP internet, the Legionnaires had made the best of a bad situation.

The fact of the matter was every Legionnaire that had been kidnapped had survived. Arcade had been stopped. Almost all of Arcade's "Tributes" had been killed or detained by the Legionnaires and some of the Harubbian dissidents. The arena had ended on Day 3 instead of Day 30, which had saved dozens of lives. And the upload of the raw footage had been stopped mid-stream so that only a few people would have to deal with their ordeal becoming public knowledge.

Now it was time for friends and teammates to reunite and for everyone to head back to the safety of Legion World.

[ooc: Anyone can start a thread, regardless of whether they're a Legionnaire that was in the arena, or a Legionnaire outside the arena checking up on their friends.]

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"And not how good looking it makes me? Dang." False bravado that settles on the skin with such familiarity it might as well be real. York gives a little snort, a soft self depreciating laugh before he rolls out his shoulders. Tense fidgeting because this is an unknown variable among a month of roughly the same and finding a baseline from which to work keeps getting more and more difficult.

A week, though. Five years ago he'd ignore it, chase Wash, make sure he's okay. Now? Probably better to give him the week. Didn't seem like he was all that settled, seeing him again.

Chief's confirmation of what he more or less figured to be the case has him grimacing before he can twist it into a smile. "Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated."

He lives because of course he does- or. He doesn't, they don't, and they aren't looking at that at all. It's harder to hold onto that thought. He reaches up to massage a phantom ache, two bullet wounds now scarred on his upper left chest. "...They uh. Patched me up when I got here."

"They're good at that," says the Chief. He recognizes the front of bravado, it's not too far from what he does himself. Perhaps a bit more deft, though. York's is informed by a lifetime of normal human socialization and he has some actual charm.

"If we're lucky we'll get a break and not have to test that again for a while. The Legion's good, but we don't take much vacation time."

Not that the Chief would know what to do with it. He worries about the others, though. He may be walking out of Arcade's arena mostly unshaken, but the Chief's... never been a good representative of the whole.

"If he lets himself have the downtime." That's the question, really. Wash pushed himself in the project as much as anyone else- an older, wiser, more tired Wash? Probably did the same damn thing times, like, ten. Which'll mean he will have to take his time with pretty much everything.

"On the one hand, leave is important. On the other? Can kinda go bugnus if you're not being kept busy." Spartans and Freelancers are both sporting breeds that way, need the work or they start gnawing on shit. "So...how do you know Wash? I'm getting this kinda Drill Sargent Dad vibe from you here."

The Chief nods again. Wash doesn't relax well and he knows. Because, in that way at least, Wash is like him. That's why he feels like he needs to look out for him, because he knows Wash isn't looking out for himself very well.

"I met him here. We've been on the same side of an ambush a couple of times now."

He's not sure if "drill sergeant dad" is a reference or if it's just an unfamiliar turn of phrase, but either way he's not getting exactly what York means by it. So, he just doesn't acknowledge it.

"He's good to have at your back as long as he's not panicking." Even then, well. He's not BAD to have at your back. There are, of course, worse people. But he's not the best to have in york's experience which- needs to be adjusted. Because this is an older Wash and that is gonna take some getting used to, goddamn.

Okay. How much is different? Count 'em up and add them to the pile.

"He's been doing ok? I mean. As ok as any of us get."

"Yes."

'Ok' is pretty subjective, and as long as someone's not an active detriment to the mission, the Chief supposes they qualify. He knows that Wash has been struggling, but he's been mostly holding it together and it's not the Chief's place to talk about it. He's worried about Wash, but he's not sure what he can do about it beyond giving him space.

"How are you adjusting?" he asks York. They are at least sort of from a similar universe, and though the Chief was never well-socialized back home he's still picked up a bit of a culture shock in the jump.

He also needs to assess how concerned he should be about another new teammate.

"Bullshit, he's never ok. But that's sort of. Normal." And it's a sad goddamn thing when not ok is their normal. Was their normal. Will be- fuck it. The grammar of different points in the timeline is easier to quibble over than focusing on the circling voice in the back of his brain going 'i'm dead i'm dead i'm dead i'm dead'.

Not much.

But.

Some.

"Oh, you know. I'm happier here than I was back home. Fight the good fight, save people do some good, Ooh-fucking-rah." Except this feels slightly more honest. A little less like the project and more like his time on the frontlines. Soldiers and squads and people that need help, appropriate and acceptable targets, very few opportunities for ambiguity. So far. He's sure that'll change soon enough.

The Chief doesn't smile, exactly, but there's a little quirk at one corner of his mouth at York's assessment of Wash.

"Then we'll go with 'normal'," he says. They agree. It's... not ideal, but functional.

It's weird to be in a place with the time and resources available to aspire to better than just "functional".

"Clear cut objectives. Solid support base. No orbital plasma," the Chief agrees. The change for him has been less in moral ambiguity and more in stakes. While it's true they're faced with Chronoblivion and it's unclear how they're going to stop that, their missions in the meantime can't even touch how dire things were for the Chief during the war. They're peacekeepers cleaning up trouble as it arises, not the failing defensive line trying to hold back the implacable advance of the Covenant.

It's nice to be on the winning side.

"This was unusual as far as our ops go."

But given the ambush at Talokk IV, he's starting to wonder if things like this will start happening more often. That's a worry there.

"A nice change of pace except, yeah. That." And as much as he slings his hands in his pockets and smirks, as much as he tries to keep an easy eye on things- that thought pings in among the rattling of patterns and variables in the back of his head as well. That one irregular point of data might become the norm. Winning streaks don't always last, all that. But- they've got some kind of a support network for when shit goes wrong, it looks like.

Medics and grief counseling. Shit they didn't have on the front, shit they sure as hell didn't have during the project.

"He's not gonna tell me anything about what went down but- uh." Feels weird to ask THE chief this. "You alright?"

The Chief nods. "I've been worse." It's his usual answer now, shrugging off the issue, and it probably says something very negative about his life as a whole that it's true.

"Arcade expected us to kill one another or die in the arena. He didn't account for how stubborn we are."

He eyes the perimeter they've set up speculatively.

"The whole place was full of traps and monsters. We'd find one another and team up, then he'd have to use his teleportation array to separate us again before we could break anything. After three days he stopped being able to keep up with all of us at once, and we broke into the infrastructure."

"...I probably do not wanna know what went down to make Spartans so damn effective, do I?" Considering how fucked up the Project had been? He'd have good money on the system that actually fucking worked being just as screwed up and awful. Progress doesn't come from sparkling scientists with bloodless hands and clear ethics.

Bitches get shit done. It applies to more than just the office.

All that and, goddamn. York turns his head to look back in the direction where Wash bolted, frowning. No fucking wonder seeing him again had set him off. or. Just about set him off. "Maybe I should give him two weeks."

"Good training. Good equipment. Always ate our veggies, growing up." That's the secret. Tell no one. York's right, but the Chief doesn't intend to tip his hand about just how right he is. It's a joke, but it's also a none-of-your-business. The Chief hopes he can avoid explaining the Spartan program to anyone ever again. He's not ashamed of it, and still believes it was necessary, but he's not eager to lay it out there for people who won't understand to pick it over.

"It's up to you, just so long as he pulls himself together first." He'll stick by a week, it feels like a good estimate. Maybe on the conservative side, but that can't hurt, right?

"Thank you."

York listened to him, and they're both obviously operating from a place of concern. This situation could have been a lot worse, from how it looked.

That's as much confirmation as it is evasion and York? Isn't prying. His lips twist in a wry grin, nodding. "You know that's what we didn't have enough of in the Project? Veggies. It was all protein powder all the time."

Shoulda known, damn.

How much worse it was, however more fucked up it is? right now he doesn't want to know. The human race doesn't get a hail mary kind of saviour when things are done by the book. He knows that well enough- it's no excuse for what gets done, but it's lorded over them often enough. In the face of certain extinction, all that.

"No problem, chief. I shoulda let him go when he walked away the first time. I'm just-" He gestures, vaguely. "Used to being the older one."

The Chief makes a little pointing gesture when York talks about the protein powder. Well there's your problem, obviously. The source of all of Freelancer's troubles, finally found.

Wash is away, he understands what was happening here, and York knows who he is. The Spartan line of inquiry might not be gone forever, but it's set aside for now. That's good enough for the Chief.

"I'm going to get back to the perimeter," he says. "If you need anything else from me, that's where I am."

Because he could be taking it easy, it's what he's probably supposed to be doing, but the Chief is happier trying to do his job. He always is.

"Ooh-rah." Mini fist pump, dry and deadpan and drawling. Work to be done, all that. "I'll...get back to helping people to the medics." It's what he'd been doing, being a friendly, calming face, helping people unwind and maybe laugh a little now that they're out of that kind of hell.

That much is also kinda familiar.

Shouldn't be, but it is.

"Take care, Chief. And uh-" A beat. "Thanks."

For saving the world. For keeping him from pushing harder than he was with Wash. for watching out for the Rookie- though the last is pretty damn pointless seeing as he's got no real right to thank anyone for doing what he failed so goddamn miserably at years ago.

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MURDERWORLD [mod plot] [Reunion/Rescue]

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