For a long time now I've just wanted to do something to celebrate all the women of RvB and since I'm impatient as much as I'm not creative, I just put this together.
Red vs Blue and related properties © Rooster Teeth
story © RenaRoo
Take It Like a Woman
"Katie Jensen," her mother used to say to her, "if you think hard enough, dream big enough, and work loud enough, you could fix anything in the world."
It was something that Katie always kept right in the forefront of her brain, always whispered between every breath. She was too young to appreciate what all of it meant before the war broke out, but once it did...
Well. Katie learned there was a lot of things on Chorus that needed fixing.
The part that always gave her trouble as a kid, always made her laugh a bit when she was confounded, was "work loud enough."
How did working get loud?
Why would it need to be loud?
Katie was never too sure about it growing up, but it made her think more than any of the other parts so it always held a special meaning. And, of course, as she grew up and did so alone, she began to realize just what working loud meant.
"Jensen, fix the jeep."
"Jensen, fix the radio."
"Jensen, fix the docking bay you crashed into."
She did a lot of work around the New Republic's bases, long before she ever entered basic, and it wasn't long before her reputation of fixing things got around as well. Katie was constantly fixing things.
And not hearing a lot of gratitude for it.
Working loud. Well, working loud reminded you that you were working at all sometimes. Working loud meant making sure others knew exactly what work was being done for them, too.
So when Palomo said, "Hey, Jensen, can you give me my helmet back?"
Katie smiled and said back, "Can you give me my helmet back... What, Palomo?"
She got a "Please? And thank you?"
Doctor Emily Grey. Doctor Emily Grey.
It had a pleasant ring to it.
In a time before conflict and war had torn apart Chorus like tissue paper, she found herself gravitating toward the magnitude of the title rather than the desire to see medical degrees and doctorates taken to their logical conclusion.
It was hard to remember those times clearly after the years and years of seeing truly horrible things people were capable of doing to each other, but she knew that it once had carried weight to it - to mend bones and cauterize wounds, to tell friends of tragedy to walk patients through the loss of limbs and gain of scars.
She had seen other doctors - good doctors, great doctors - broken down and removed from the painful reality of their work. She'd seen friends, only on site to assist, not make it back without ever learning to shoot the first gun.
And she got to see first hand what awful things her fellow doctors would do to themselves as well.
It used to bother her a lot more, she thought. It used to sicken her.
When that happened, she wasn't able to continue doing her best, to perform at the top of her skills, and it had some costly consequences.
She decided she was better than that, that she was more capable of scaring away the horrors of war than they should have been capable of scaring her.
So when her humor scared her patients, if they were uncomfortable, she hoped that they'd just be capable of understanding, it was better they be scared than her.
"I was thinking you'd look excellent with a robotic replacement for this arm," she'd say with no hint of sarcasm.
And it was only natural that she'd get, "But there's nothing wrong with my arm!"
To which a toothy grin and response of, "I know, I was just thinking," should be nothing but comforting.
Vanessa Kimball was, above all else, a soldier.
She accepted her orders and she served under them to the greatest of her abilities. She never let a commanding officer down, never put herself or her ambitions above the beliefs of the New Republic, and never took defeat as anything less than personal.
It made her something more than just a common soldier serving in the infantry and before long it put her in a position of leadership to other soldiers.
She did her best, her well deserved discomfort aside, and continued to serve as she was commanded.
But, as was the nature of Chorus' devastating conflict, it didn't take all that long before Kimball didn't have people to command her any longer.
They lost leaders and generals and brigadiers until Vanessa found herself looking to thin air for orders.
And when she looked back to her people, she was horrified to find each and every one of them were looking to the logical next in command.
Her. Vanessa Kimball.
She was the leader of the New Republic - a banner she served but never once even fantasized leading. The cause she was willing to die for was suddenly asking her to do something much harder: to live for it.
She wasn't sure she would ever be able to fully do that. It was an unnatural summons for her.
But Kimball's people believed in her. Felix told her she could do it.
And she figured, if nothing else, he would know.
"You're kidding. A giant tattoo of a shark? On his back?" she laughed before smacking the kiss decal to her armor. It almost did her proud just to be looking at it.
She looked back at her old friend, glad to share the changing room with someone other than the boys.
The fellow Insurrectionist laughed into her hand as the other steadily balanced the chain gun she had with her on the bench. Her eyes shined with her large grin.
"He likes his theme," she told Girlie. "Shark this, shark that - hey, everyone's gotta have a theme."
"I'm just saying, flamethrowers and sea monsters aren't usually the first thing I consider going hand-in-hand," Girlie snorted.
"Eh, you'll just have to overlook it," she responded before leaping to her feet, throwing the massive weapon over her shoulder. "It's what you do for family."
Connie was a foreign name to her by then. C.T. had been etched into every piece of equipment, every personal item, written on the back of every note and picture.
But in her mind, the most prominent etching was the contact number that she could signal in twenty minutes. Something that, if done, was promised to change everything. Reveal everything.
She stared off, through the lockers. She felt cold even at considering the options.
You're not like the others, C.T.
He was buttering her up. He was lying. He was...
He was making too much sense. And C.T. wasn't sure what gave him the right to make so much sense when everything had refused to make sense for so long.
Not since she had started the program.
You're not like the others, C.T. You're not a sheep.
Freelancer was breaking into pieces right before them. She wasn't sure how she was the only one who noticed it. C.T. wasn't sure if it was a reflection on her ambitions, if it was a sign of her gullibility at hearing that the reasons for her failure were not because of a leader board placement but because of something rotten being wrong with the very program entrusted with her life.
She wondered, deep down, if anyone else - if any of her friends, her teammates - felt the same questions, pondered the same morality. If she wasn't alone. If there was someone else she could make this decision with.
For a while, she waited. Waited to see if any of her friends would dare defy the Director's orders and check on her in the locker room after she had dropped from the board once more.
Someone did. But it wasn't someone she was expecting.
"Tough luck, Kid," Tex said.
"You're never in here," C.T. spat back. "You following orders? The Director want to mock me through someone else now?"
Tex just stared from behind her helmet. "You're not the only one not so great at following orders, Kid. Sleep some. Don't say anything you'll regret later."
The "newest" Freelancer left.
C.T. made a call.
Niner held back from the other operatives of Freelancer.
Her division was different, and as the head pilot there really weren't expectations for her to uniformly join the agents of Freelancer even with the advent that, much like them, she was without a real name.
She was only Niner to them, which worked out just fine. They didn't have to know about her story, her medals, her waiting family to respect her. She didn't want them to.
But that connection, getting them to their destinations and managing to get them back without too much death or destruction, still made something strong between them.
She liked the Freelancers, even as much as she wanted bang their heads together for being ridiculous.
Which was why, eating in the mess hall and minding her own business, it was still strangely difficult to back away from the opportunity of testing out their newb.
Niner wasn't huge or bulky. She was a pilot first, but she knew how to throw her weight around and make it count.
So when this Agent Washington, holding his tray like it was the first day of middle school, began to look around for a proper spot, desperately attempting to choose "correctly" among his peers, Niner knew that she would have to take pity on the poor man.
He seemed torn between a spot among the Dakotas and on the other side of Connecticut and Maine, the tension grown thicker and thicker as the other Freelancers began to turn and size up the dusty blonde.
So Niner took aim, flicked her spoon, and watched as the kid's face splattered with whatever the mystery entree was today.
"Bullseye," she snarked to herself just as Maine, decidedly taking up for the kid, whirled around to figure out who in the direction of Wyoming and Florida threw the first food.
Niner, again, wasn't huge, and she loved every minute of it, easily ducking down as chaos took place in the name of avenging the rookie.
Laughter ensued as Maine rushed into a foodfight like a bull in a China shop and the other Freelancers were all too quick to join in. Bunch of children.
C.T. smirked at Washington, moved over to give him space, and the gray-and-yellow Freelancer gladly took it.
Wash locked eyes with Niner, face full of relief.
She smirked and coolly waved him off before finishing her more desirable food.
Carolina's time was slipping.
It was only the third time that morning she ran the course Epsilon had designed from the environment. Usually she could go five without slipping whole seconds from her lap time, but it was different.
It'd all been very different since they returned to the Reds, the Blues, and the confused and manipulated people of Chorus.
Want to call it a day? Get some food? You didn't sleep well according to Delta and-
"We're going to keep running it until I shave off a second from my best time," she informed him sternly.
Okay, I'm just going to tell you that physically-
"What do we say, Epsilon?" she demanded from the AI as she slid beneath another low bar.
No such thing as physical limits. Okay. That's an idea, but here's the reality...
Carolina stopped at the finish point, heaving air she should have exhaled, shaking her head to loosen the sweat on her brow under the helmet. She went back to the starting line.
"I'll never stop until I'm sure I can handle this," she reminded him. "You know that."
I also know you don't have to prove anything, C. Not to me. Not to anybody.
"This isn't about proving anything, Epsilon," she told him in a finalizing tone.
The AI took the hint, remaining silent as she ran through the drill again.
Epsilon was right, though. She didn't have to prove herself. She didn't have to be perfect - not anymore. But it wasn't about those things.
She needed to keep these idiots - her idiots - alive. And despite all her training, all her work, all her leadership... Carolina still wasn't sure she could do that.
South thought that, in hindsight, allowing her brother to tag along into Space, into the army, into Freelancer, was not the best idea.
She was competitive, and he knew it. She was ambitious, and for all his appearances he was not.
Their differences and similarities worked for and against them, like they would for any twins, and in a sense that was what scared her about the program.
"What would you do if your sibling outpaced you, Agent South?"
When the counselor had asked her that question, South wasn't even sure what to make of it. It almost sounded like a bad joke, really. It hadn't occurred to her once that it would happen. It never had.
"I don't have to worry about it," she said simply. "North is good. The best at what he wants to do. Sure. But that's only because North learned a long time ago to not want to do what I'm best at."
The counselor was probably her least favorite person in Freelancer, save for when Wyoming's knock knock jokes were too annoying to find acceptable. Which was a lot, unfortunately.
"And that is because you are undeniably the best at those particular tasks," he twisted her words. Like he always did.
But South could fight back with that. "I just want things more - even more than he does," she said firmly. "He knows that."
"Do you see a lack of competitiveness in your brother, Agent South?" the counselor asked too calmly. "Do you think he has never felt the same competitive nature as you?"
"Just not as much as me, but he's competitive, sure. Like I said, North's good," she repeated.
"By that logic, the both of you should be in the top slots of the leaderboard," the counselor surmised. "Currently, however, you are fourth and fifth respectively."
South couldn't restrain her snarl. "That can change very easily."
The counselor tapped his pen against his palmpad. "Yes," he responded, "I suppose it can."
Kaikaina Grif laughed in the messenger's face.
The girl was pretty hot, but Kai wasn't really all that impressed with the come on or the way dozens of soldiers in different armor from anything Kai had seen since joining the army rushed across the valley - mostly concentrating around Red Base and taking things off.
After all, really, who used a pick up line as lame as Sorry your brother's dead.
"Yeah, no," Kai laughed.
"No?" the other soldier responded with a cautious blink. "Private Grif, I know this must be terrible news, but it is unfortunately true that the entire transport - crew and all - are completely gone. Every ship to have gone missing from that sector has not been found and-"
"Look, this is really nice and all, and I hope you all will laugh with me about it at the rave tonight," Kai said, turning toward her beach towel and tanning oil, "but I don't really believe you, soooo. Just don't bother lying to me."
"None of this is a lie!"
"My big brother has never left me for good," Kai said firmly. "Never once. We even found each other after you assholes drafted him. And no matter what dumb stuff you guys threw at him, he always lived. Even if some of his body parts weren't his own anymore. So. It's whatever. He's fine. Big Bro's a go. Unless you have a body or something."
"We don't -" the soldier stopped, rubbed her temples. "Ma'am, you do understand that Project Freelancer is being disassembled, don't you? You understand that those simulations - those scenarios - that you and the other troopers here experienced were controlled experiments. The likelihood of survival in real war is not-"
"Listen, chick," Kai turned over, lowered her sunglasses enough to glare over them. "Show me a body. You don't have one. That just means I have to go find my bro later. Whatever. But don't stand around and insult family to my face. Dex can take anything. I've seen him take anything. He always comes out on top. He always comes back. You can't keep a good Grif down."
Tex could see Omega for what he really was. And it was a truly ugly, awful thing.
But then, it wasn't any worse than seeing herself for what she truly was - a failure. A mark. An 'x' on the long list of accomplishments of the truly miserable life of a truly miserable man. Mired forever by the object of all he loved, and all he raged over.
Omega looked at her and saw obsession.
Just as he looked at Alpha and saw a broken shell of an AI unable to contain him anymore.
"I was so happy to be rid of you back in Blood Gulch," Tex sighs, shaking her head. "I was so... I forgot why I'd made sure to not lose you, you stupid bastard. And it never had anything to do with the fact that you always found your way back to me first."
He just smiled. And that would have been chilling if she was anyone other than Tex - other than Beta.
"Nothing ever made Leonard angrier than failure, did it, Omega?" she asked him, as if she needed a real answer for it. "No one ever made him angrier than me when I ran away."
"You turned your back on us," Omega snarled.
"No, no she didn't," Tex clarified. She pointed her thumb at her chest for emphasis. "I did, but I'm not her. And no one knows that better than you, right, Omega? I'm not her, so I'm a fucking failure again. Right? That make you angry, big boy?"
His eyes burned with hate. "Yes."
"And that just makes you stronger, huh? Makes it easier to forget what you're really angry at - makes you forget all about the Director and Alpha and everything else. Just way too easy to be angry at me instead. Right?" she spat at him.
"Yes!" he roared back.
"Fine! You've got me, you bastard," she said, easing her shoulders back. "You've got me. You've got the War's solution. Fuck, you've got the whole goddamn universe in your hands. I'll stand by you. Just. Promise me. Promise me you'll leave the rest of them alone-"
She knew what his answer was, but she didn't get to hear it. She got the ringing of her name in her ears and Church's fucking stupid face instead.
"Goddammit, Church!"
Sheila did not think outside of her programmed perimeters. At least, that was logically all she could do considering her programming. She was not the type of AI to evolve and develop with unforeseen stimuli.
But then, that did not explain Lopez. Nor did it explain her own loyalties (and betrayals and mistakes) when it came to the Blues.
It did not explain packed lunches or time honored patrolling of the perimeters of Blood Gulch Outpost Alpha when there was no Blue Team around to even give such an order.
"I do not believe I am functioning properly," she logged. "My reasoning is usually not within standard deviations for an Offsite Artificial Intelligence Construct. And I do not believe that these patrols have done anything to minimize the size of my treads."
There were no Reds, or more importantly Lopez, across the canyon. And since all of the troopers were chasing after O'Malley, there was a cause to believe that the rogue AI and his medic captive and/or meat sack were not an overall concern for the safety of Blue Base.
If possible for an AI within a tank, Sheila sighed, lowering her main cannon as she looked across yet another dull, hot day in Blood Gulch.
"If there are no orders, and there are no teams, and I cannot receive transmissions from any Command facility..." she continued to log, "I wonder why I'm here."
After a moment to collect herself, she began to tread the same patrol path once more, ignoring the grinding of rusted gears and blowing of fuses beneath her steel chassis.
Allison honestly didn't have a lot of time to waste. If she didn't leave fairly soon she'd be late for shipping off and, well, that'd just make the next tour a living hell knowing the guys.
Still, she sat patiently, full uniform, stock still on the living room floor, picking idly at the godawful carpet Leonard had picked out, and letting her little girl finish up a French twist.
"Does your daddy let you practice on him when I'm gone? Because you're very good at this, my little sunshine," Allison asked, trying her best to imagine Leonard at the kitchen table, absorbed in whatever science journal had his attention for the morning, drinking his coffee black and completely unaware of their daughter playing with his hair.
"Nooooo," she snorted back. "His hair's too short. And... messy."
"You mean 'coarse'?"
"Yeah," her daughter mumbled, running chubby finger through her own hair. It hadn't missed the Church family texture, that was for sure.
Allison looked to her watch but quickly dismissed it, turning around to face her baby girl. "Sit in my lap, soldier," she ordered.
The moment her little redhead dropped down, Allison began to work a much less skilled braid through her daughter's hair. "I've been thinking about it a lot this week, and I think I'm going to leave you in charge of the house while I'm gone," she informed the six-year-old. "I know you're in school - and school comes first! - but I think you're a much better choice to leave in charge."
"Better than daddy?"
"Way better," Allison laughed. "You can't order pizza every night. You have to make sure your daddy remembers to shower every day, even when he's working on, well, whatever he's working on next, and you have to put yourself to bed by o'twenty-one hours."
"Nine?" the girl whined, kicking her feet out as she moaned.
"Oh, alright. o'twenty-one hours and five minutes," Allison joked, leaning over her girl's shoulder and planting a firm kiss on her cheek. "Take care of yourself, my l'il soldier. You're strong and brave and smart, and like all little girls, you can do anything. So I'm going to trust you to do what's right. Even when I'm gone."
"I will," her daughter said, sounding a little miserable.
"I know you will," Allison sighed, wrapping her arms around her daughter and squeezing as hard as she could. "I know you will."