Various times and places

[prettycoolguy]

Who| The Chief and anyone
What| A variety of things
Where| Around Legion World
When| Before any Valor's Day celebrations
Warnings/Notes| A general catchall run-into-the-Chief-somehow post

HAB DECK
On part of the hab deck, it's a bright and crisp mountain day. The sky is clear and blue, not a cloud in sight but some high whisps of frozen cirrus. The forest and the highland outpost are blanketed in a perfect layer of snow, and the surface of the lake is covered by a thick sheet of ice. It's beautiful and cold as balls.

Somewhere along the shore, a thin curl of smoke rises into the air. Is fire allowed on space stations? Probably not, but here it is. He could conceal it, but there's no real reason to. The Chief is practicing his woodcraft, which he hasn't had a chance to do in a very long time. There was no point to it for most of the war, the Covenant destroyed planets well before his team had to spend any great length of time on them. But it's still somehow satisfying, it feels somewhat productive to refresh old skills, and he's content to be moving around and doing something as he sets up a camp he doesn't need.

That, and being out in the snow on a fascimile of the planet Reach just brings back memories of better times. But he wouldn't admit that to anyone.

TRAINING ROOM
The training room on Legion World is built for people who can bench multiple tons, break the sound barrier, and fly. It could probably challenge someone doing all three, if it had to. It means that unlike at home, the Chief doesn't have to push the equipment to its limits to get a workout even with his armor.

At the moment, he's tangling with two hard light dummies on one of the mats. They come at him as a team, attempting to open the Spartan up and distract him for each other. The Chief is on full defensive. For each attempt to drop him he counters, there's another one right behind it. There's no real pattern, but there is a strange almost-coordination to the whirling interplay of combatants, all moving several times faster than any human has a right to. It's a punishing pace, and the Chief has been at this long enough that he's finally started panting.

Then something distracts him. Motion near the door, a sound, whatever it is catches him for a fraction of a second and it's enough for him to take a hard light fist to the ribs. The spell is broken and both dummies converge on the Chief in a flurry of blows. He holds out just long enough to catch one by the arm and shove it into the other. In the moment it takes them to untangle, he leaps clear of the ring.

"Hold simulation," he says, and they freeze in place as he turns to get a better look at the cause of the disturbance. If he's irritated with anyone, it's himself for letting it get him.

MONITOR DUTY
Monitor duty is, as ever, about as exciting as watching paint dry. Sharing a shift with someone else usually helps make it more bearable, especially with the current low volume of distress calls coming in. It means there's someone to talk with to help pass the time.

This is only true, however, when the other person talks.

Sharing the monitor room with the Master Chief is a bit like sharing it with a stone gargoyle. He seems perfectly content to just watch the instruments and not say a word.

If it stays like this, it's going to be a very long shift.

OTHER THINGS
[ Feel free to bring me a starter or request something specific/different, you can grab me at zitasaurusrex! ]

Comments

MONITOR DUTY

[bachido]

Kubo is so, so happy to be living in a world where he can be sitting with interesting people, sharing interesting stories, listening keenly for someone somewhere in need of help to call them for it, also knowing that his mother is nearby to contact in literally seconds in case he just wants to see her. Or ask for a snack.

He's so happy that it doesn't bother him even remotely that the person he's on monitor duty with doesn't seem interested in striking up a conversation. Kubo can do that just fine.

"So, are you Wash's friend?"

He'd been sitting, looking Chief up and down with interest, playing his shamisen quietly so as not to drown out the sound of any incoming distress call.

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief peers over at Kubo. There's an awkward beat of silence before he finally says, "Yes."

It's true. He's just not used to having people he can accurately call friends.

"Why?"

[bachido]

"I thought you might know each other because your armor is similar."

Kubo kept up with his song, the odd beat of the futuristic (at least to him) tune challenging his usual sense of timing. He nevertheless was having a lot of fun with the challenge.

"Wash has been very kind to me since I arrived here. He's training me in hand-to-hand. My mother thinks he's done well, and she's a great and ancient warrior. You must be proud to be his friend."

[prettycoolguy]

"He's not someone I knew before, but he knew about me," says the Chief. It's possible Wash might not even exist in his home universe, the only thing they know for sure is there's a version of him in Wash's.

All this alternate-world stuff is complicated.

Is he proud to be Wash's friend? The Chief has to pause to examine the feeling. He doesn't do that often. Surprised is probably closer, he didn't expect anyone to take an interest in him as a person like Wash has. It's weird, but not unpleasant?

"I am," he says. It's a lot simpler to go with that than it is to express something more exact. ...And maybe that's truer than he's willing to confront. The Chief has made a friend. He knows it's not something he's good at.

"He knows his way around a fight."

Is Wash a Spartan? No. But the Chief is the only one here who is, and he trusts Wash at his back when things go wrong.

[bachido]

"Are you a hero back home, too? The sort that people tell stories about?"

His father had called him a hero once, but nobody really told stories about him yet. There were always quiet heroes doing their best without anyone else knowing much about it, like he had been, but then there were also heroes like Hanzo had been - the sort whose stories spread across time and space.

Kubo waited curiously for Chief to mull through his thoughts, satisfied with his conclusion. He nodded in agreement.

"I am, too," he said. "To be his student, I mean. But I think we're friends, too."

Hab Deck

[unrecovered]

Wash had been planning on doing what had become habit at this point - heading down to the shore of the Reach lake that Chief had brought with him to sit and think - except that that section of the habitat deck is currently freezing.

Okay then.

It takes him some time to find an adequate coat and gloves, but he finally heads back and sees Chief through the trees, building a fire and setting up camp. Huh.

He considers his options for a moment, then bends over to scoop up a handful of snow, compacting it into a ball. This, he reflects, is a really stupid idea and is liable to get him maimed, especially if Chief isn't familiar with the concept.

Fuck it. He'll heal.

He darts out from behind a tree - "Think fast!" - and hurls the snowball straight at Chief.

[prettycoolguy]

Out of the armor he's not quick enough for a clean dodge but, to the Chief's credit, he does think fast. He takes the snowball on the shoulder rather than his back as he jumps to put something between himself and whatever that was.

It's only after he's low behind a pine that he takes the split second to recognize what just hit him and that the voice belonged to Wash.

The Chief brushes the snow off his shoulder. Oh. Oh. He knows this.

He scoops some snow, rises, and peeks back around his cover to try and pick out where Wash has gone, all alertness and adrenaline.

He has been challenged and he intends to win.

[unrecovered]

The silence stretches for a moment or two, and Wash starts to second-guess his actions. He did just sneak attack a Spartan, after all, and if Chief isn't familiar with the concept of a snowball fight, he may have just attacked him in what was supposed to be a safe space.

But he'd had to have realized by now that it's snow, right? That it's harmless?

Wash isn't sure and doesn't have a way to check without giving away his position. For now, he hunkers down behind a bush and busies himself making extra ammunition. The ball's in Chief's court now.

[prettycoolguy]

Wash doesn't reveal himself, so it's up to the Chief to go find him. He can do that. Unfortunately, though, it's going to mean breaking cover to cross to that treeline.

Can't be helped, oh well. He drops the snow and moves decisively, steps crunching as he rushes across the open space for the winter-stripped vegetation on the far side. Once he gets there he plans to head up toward where he's fairly sure Wash has gone to ground. Hopefully, the tangle of trees will make him harder to hit.

And if he is hit, it's not plasma.

This is exciting and unpredictable and nonlethal. It's entirely possible that hunting your buddy to try and nail him with snow qualifies as fun.

Hab Deck

[littlecousin]

For all her cheerful adaptability, Nita still gets homesick sometimes. It's for a home she never really knew; the old imperial capital had been bombed to rubble when she was barely old enough to have memories of it, but those few flashes of the past are the only times she remembers when everything was truly right--her mother relaxed and happy and her father alive.

Cold brings it back, a little. The salty Antarctic waters stayed below freezing year-round, the ice pack above tinting the sunlight blue-green as it filtered down to the city on the seabed. A mountain range in the open air isn't quite the same, but the vast blue of the sky is close. She had considered opening a hole in the ice on the frozen lake so she could get even closer by going for a swim, but it had all looked so pretty she hadn't wanted to spoil the view for anyone else who might come by.

Instead, she makes a circuit of the lake, flying low and slow to avoid leaving footprints in the picture-perfect snow, until she comes on the tracks someone else already left. Well, then. Nita drops into the Chief's footprints and follows them, unbothered by the fact that his long stride has her still doing a considerable portion of her own trailbreaking. The minor mystery of who she could be tracking distracts her from her melancholy mood, as does a pine bough dumping its load of snow onto her head as she brushes past.

It's so cold that the snow is light and powdery, and she's having a grand old time kicking it up in clouds in front of her as she goes, tromping through the snow and giggling in a fine display of a complete lack of woodcraft. When Nita emerges into the Chief's clearing, she's got a thin coating of rapidly-melting snow on her hair and bare shoulders and does not look nearly as distressed as someone in a bathing suit in sub-freezing weather should look.

"Oh, hi!" She waves. Mystery solved! Well, sort of. She's still not sure who this guy is she's saying hi to.

[prettycoolguy]

"Hello."

It's automatic. You say 'hello' to people when they greet you, at least that much social conditioning has stuck.

The Chief isn't surprised to find someone else in his section of the deck, he hasn't expressed any kind of territoriality over it, but she is not dressed for this. It's a little alarming.

"Aren't you cold?"

He jumps straight to that, with brow furrowed and incredible social grace. (Except it's actually only one of those things.)

[littlecousin]

Nita's nearly impossible to offend, so the Chief can just keep practicing his social skills on her until he finally gets enough XP to level them.

She looks down at herself as if his question has caused her to double-check. "Oh, no." She laughs, but not so much at him as humans in general and their assumptions about things. "It'd have to be way colder than this before I felt it."

As she leaves the trees and walks over to him, it will be easier to notice the pointed elf ears, and if he's paying attention, the small white wings on her ankles when her feet come up high enough for them to show above the snow.

"Is this your part of the Hab Deck? It's beautiful."

[prettycoolguy]

"Thanks." Also automatic, also without inflection.

Noticing things that are beautiful isn't automatic for the Chief, he has to switch modes and consider it consciously. Just the appearances, not assessing for resources and cover. The snow. The sky. The forest.

Well. He supposes.

"Where are you from that you're used to this?"

This is a much more interesting and useful topic, if you ask him. He's gotten used to the aliens-that-almost-look-human thing, as bizarre as that is.

Training Room

[goddamngrenades]

It's one thing to hear of all the shit Spartans can do. To know this one in particular's the reason there's a humanity left for people like The Director to screw over. But seeing it? That's something else entirely. York'd been coming in to brush up on some of his own hand to hand and as stunned as he'd been watching Carolina the first time? He's struck mid step with the sheer skill and efficiency of movement.

Yeah. Not getting on the chief's bad side would be a good life choice. Backing him up in the field would be kind of impossible unless you've got a suit and power enough to keep up.

Good thing he's not really that kind of frontline guy, not anymore, and he shakes off the thought and old, old, old misplaced twinge of not quite resentment and envy instilled in him by the damn Project with all it's focus on being the top of the leaderboard, there's not one here, everyone involved is dead (except Wash and Carolina) which is it's own jumble of emotions, and here he's an infiltration specialist for good. He'll get the Chief into places he can clear. That's enough.

Of course when he gets his head on straight and heads for his own area the Chief goes down, holds the Sim and York's halfway through pulling up a challenge for himself and Delta and- well. So much for not getting on his bad side. D clears his little digital throat and York lifts a hand to wave. "Uh. Hi."

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief takes the moment to catch his breath now that he's stopped, there's no reason not to, and nods.

"York," he acknowledges. Then, after a moment's hesitation, "Delta." He hasn't spoken to Delta personally, but has at least seen him.

...He should probably do something to indicate this is okay, shouldn't he? He's only talked to York in person twice. The first time gave York a small heart attack, and the second time he had to haul the Freelancer's boots off the floor.

Yes. He should definitely do something.

"It's fine," he says.

Nailed it.

[goddamngrenades]

"Chief." Right this totally isn't awkward at all. "...Just so we're both clear- I don't buy that but I don't want to actually talk about it since I don't think you do either. So."

He just goes back to keying in a scenario for himself and Delta, though the AI's thoughts are rattling around the back of York's brain a mile a microsecond and it's getting a little weird to have D stare like a creeper. "D, be nice."

'I am simply curious as to...' He trails off, head tilting to one side, birdlike.

"Whether or not the chief has opinions regarding your existence?"

[prettycoolguy]

But it is fine! He's not sure how to argue that point, though, or if he should even try.

He taps at the terminal to clear his simulation. If York would rather him not be around, that's fine too. He's about at the end of the time the Chief allotted for this anyway, he can go.

Delta's question makes him pause.

He knows what Wash told him, that all the Freelancer AI's are fragments broken off from a tortured progenitor. He knows that disgusts him, and it trips every protective drive he's developed toward Cortana. But he doesn't know how much he should admit to that, and tries to figure out where this is going first.

"Any particular aspect? Or in general?"

Monitor Duty

[isthisapidge]

Pidge is generally pretty quiet even when she's with people, but maybe she feels like she should have something to say to Chief? He's Wash's friend, she knows that, but it's not like that means they have to be friends just because they have a friend in common.

But maybe he thinks she's standoffish and rude because she's being so quiet? There's no reason to think that, really, they're just doing a job that doesn't require that much communication, but on the other hand they don't really know each other that well so there's no telling what he thinks about her.

Boy, it's a good thing she's not speaking right now. Her tendency to ramble can be a little embarrassing, but if the way she clears her throat, sneaks glances at him when she thinks he isn't looking, and fidgets with her hands isn't giving away that she's less than comfortable, then he probably isn't paying attention to her at all.

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief notices he's being glanced at, but it takes him a while to decide what he's going to do about it. He's not good at putting people at ease. ...Not in situations where nobody needs him to bring down an enemy, anyway.

He's seen her around, but he doesn't know Paladin, Pidge, really. She's a member of the team. She's a friend of Wash's. Something of a computer specialist. Young too, but the Chief isn't in any position to judge, given what he was doing when he was Pidge's age.

He also doesn't know what exactly is the real point of discomfort here. Maybe it's just the silence. He was fine with it, but it's a variable he can test.

"Got anything over there?"

For his part, all his blinky lights are indicating everything is fine.

[isthisapidge]

"Oh, uh-" She wasn't even paying any attention to the monitors anymore. "No. No, everything's fine."

She wants to be somewhere else, doing something else, that's definitely part of it. This feels like a waste of both their time. She understands the reason that they're supposed to all take shifts, but she can still think it's dumb.

Of course, the bigger part is that she knows next to nothing about Chief but at least she has an excuse if he asks.

"Sorry, just a little distracted."

[prettycoolguy]

"Relax. It was a question, not a reprimand."

Oh no, he made it worse. Scratch that hypothesis.

"I'm not used to things being peaceful. Usually means something's going to go wrong."

It's fine, it's all fine, he promises.

MONITOR DUTY

[deafleppard]

Gwen could keep her attention on the screens and signals for so long. She really wanted to take this seriously and did her absolute best to pay attention. But good god this was a new level of boring. So of course she's mostly messing around with her phone, browsing the network for anything interesting going on, and even going as far as checking the anon meme.

Just anything to make the time go by faster.

Maybe some conversation would help? It wasn't as though she was here by herself, though for all intents and purposes, well...

"So, uh. Anything going on over there for you?"

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief taps a screen to check the only sign of activity on his side of the panel more closely. He peers at it for a moment, then-

"Bank robbery on Winnath, but local authorities have it in hand."

Is he disappointed? Okay, not entirely, but it would've been nice to have something to do.

"Bad guys must be too busy getting ready for Valor's Day."

He thinks that's a little funny, at least.

[deafleppard]

"Oh, well, that's great. That the cops have it handled. Means we can keep doing more of... this."

Sure was still a lot of monitoring. Really exciting stuff. Her heart might not actually be able to handle it all.

"Must be. Or maybe it's just their henchmen doing all of their work today. You know, every bad guy has a couple of disposable henchmen or two."

[prettycoolguy]

"If they had the seniority to get the time off, they wouldn't be working this week. Criminal amateur hour."

That explains why everything's so easily in hand, right? Right. It's as good a theory as any.

"Too uncoordinated to be the calm before the storm. Upside to peacetime."

This observation's more for himself than it is for Gwen's benefit. It doesn't make him any less stir crazy, though.