A/N: Rated M for violence, cannon character deaths, harmful manipulation, and generally awful things (it could be a T, but I'm paranoid). Read at own will, you have been warned.
AMBITION:
York told her what it was like to have an AI in his head. He liked to tell her about it under the blankets in his bunk. The bond he shared with Delta, despite their brief time together, was one of caring, understanding, and constant information. York described it as an ebb and flow in the back of his mind trickling knowledge and analyses into his thought, helping guide his actions. Their relationship was almost one of brotherhood, all subtle teasing and bickering, but at the end of the day, they were both better for having the other.
On some level, having sigma in her head was similar, it had to be, but that ebb and flow, as yourk had called it, was more of a torrent in her mind. Sigma was loud and forceful, willing to get her to do anything to get his way. She struggled against his manipulations constantly, holding onto her belief of right and wrong like a lifeline, but Sigma was so good at blurring those lines in the sand. The more they raged against each other, the more she found her thoughts not being her own, her actions changing against her will, her emotions slipping into dangerously unhealthy territories. Between the headaches and stress, she was finding it harder and harder to figure out where she began and Sigma ended.
It was no different when she found out that Texas had the strongest AI fragment. She wasn't sure if her anger and hatred for her fellow Freelancer was hers or amplified by Sigma's cunning manipulations. Either way, she wanted a match. She was stronger now, better with the AI in her head, enabling her to use everything she had to it's fullest potential.
"Match set. Carolina versus Texas," F.I.L.S.S. announced over the loudspeakers, "Good luck, ladies."
"Thanks. I won't need it," Carolina growled, vaguely hearing Texas say the same.
She was moving before she commanded her body to do so, running at Texas with pistols blazing. Frustration clouded her mind as the dark agent dodged her barrage of bullets, moving in for close combat. That was just fine with Carolina, she was better with her fists anyways.
They traded blow after blow, Carolina's now empty pistols being used as bludgeons every time she swung at Texas. Rage and hate powered her punches and kicks as she sought to damage the Director's pet as much as she felt damaged. A punch to the chest for being first on the leaderboard. A kick to the head for beating her over and over again. A knee under the jaw for stealing all the Director's attention and what little affection he had left to give.
The director practically anglicized this cocky, shadowy woman who could do not wrong, and it screwed with Carolina's head more than she ever wanted to admit. But now she had the chance to beat this bitch who stole everything she cared about when it came to her father, and she took it. She hadn't even realized that she had Texas on the defensive until one last punch to the head had the other woman crumpling to the ground and her black helmet skittering across the floor.
Carolina stared in shock at the familiar face that she could only remember holding love, framed by blonde hair tied up in a tight regulation bun. Well isn't this curious? Sigma's voice said in her head, giving her flashes of information that he was piecing together. No, this wasn't possible. He would never… A memory of the father hunched over her mother's casket sobbing flashed in her mind. He would.
"ALLISON!" she heard her father's scream from the observation deck.
Pain lanced through her skull. Allison. Allison. He said Allison. He didn't care about her. He wouldn't scream if it was her on the floor. Allison. Allison. He wouldn't cry over her casket. He wouldn't even shed a tear. Allison. Allison. Allison. He didn't love her. She wasn't sure he ever did.
Her hands her moving, dragging her body across the floor. When had she gotten there? She was moving towards Texas, pushing herself up, rolling the other agent's body over. Her fingers were grasping the AI implant below the blonde hair, yanking it out, shifting it around, bringing it to the back of her own neck. Another, sharper pain went through her as another consciousness invaded her own, making her anger swell.
"Allison!"
Her father's strangled cries were closer now and Carolina swung around to see him on the training deck with the leaderboard Freelancers behind him. He never loved you. Her hand curled around one of Texas' unused pistols and she pushed herself to her feet. Red spotted her vision as she stalked towards the Director.
"How dare you!" Carolina spat, wrenching her helmet off and throwing it at the ground, "You desecrated her! Destroyed her memory! Tortured what little left of her existed!"
The Director backed up, putting his hands out in a placating gesture, "Now Carolina…"
"NO! YOU DO NOT GET TO TALK YOUR WAY OUT OF THIS, YOU SICK BASTARD!" she screamed, a few of the Freelancers taking up defensive positions, "I understand now! I understand why I couldn't win, why I would never win, why I wouldn't ever be good enough! You made me fight against my own mother! Made me fight for your affection, which I would never get compared to her! I hate you! And she would hate you too!"
She wasn't in control of her body or mind anymore. She rushed forwards, aiming for the director, but being intercepted by the twins. South was easily downed with a bullet to the visor, her brother crying out in agony as he saw her body fall. Killing him with a swift tug of the trigger under his chin was practically a mercy. Maine came at her next, with Washington close behind him, the white armoured agent slicing at her with the blade end of his Brute Shot. She dodged the blade, spinning around Maine and grabbing his helmet to snap his neck from behind. Gray flashed at the edge of her vision as arms wrapped around her neck in a chokehold.
"Carolina… you don't… have to do this," Washington grunted as he tried to hold her struggling body still.
Carolina's first response was to kick away and approaching Wyoming and shoot through his visor as he fell. Wash tried pinning her arm, but she managed to twist around and shoot him in the stomach, making him let go. She turned as he doubled over, holding the gun to his throat, "I do, David."
After she had pulled the trigger, she threw a glare at the last Freelancer left in the room. York had a mixture of horror and sadness on his face that wrenched her consciousness free of the two infecting AI's.
"No! No! Please, not him!" she screamed in her head, but no matter what she did, her body moved against her will, stepping closer and closer to York.
He didn't want to do this. She could see it in his eyes, but she was powerless to stop it. He threw a few half hearted punches that did nothing to stop her AI controlled body from sweeping his legs out from under him. She struggled to stop herself from pinning the tan Freelancer to the floor, but it was like she had been thrown in the backseat and strapped down.
"Carolina…" he pulled his helmet off, showing her his sad smile, "I love you."
She screamed in her head, forcing tears into her eyes that fell on his face like raindrops. Her body lurched forwards, smashing her lips against his in one last act of her own will.
"I love you too, but I've lost. Just end it please, before I end you," she begged, but the words never made it to her lips.
Her hands came up to the back of his neck, curling around Delta's implant. He screamed into the kiss when she ripped it out; a scream that was promptly cut short when she snapped his neck.
Inside her mind, she was screaming, crying, mourning everything she was losing by her own hand. "I KILLED HIM! I KILLED HIM! I KILLED THEM ALL!"
No. Sigma told her, You are not at fault for their deaths. He is.
Her green gaze turned to the Director, the broken man kneeling over the still body of Texas. A painful prick at the back of her neck, and there was a bright green light joining the purple and orange in her head. One by one, she watched from far away as her body was directed into ripping the other AIs from their dead hosts and forced to join their siblings in her head. Their confusion and fear added to the agony she was in over killing York.
Finally, there were no more AI fragments to collect. The only two people left alive on the training deck were herself and the Director. She stood over him, blankly watching the old man weep over the shadow of her dead mother. He looked up at her with the same green eyes she saw in the mirror every day, the same eyes that only ever seemed to look at her with disappointment. She wasn't good enough. She never had been.
Her grip on the pistol loosened. She dropped it in his lap, turned her back to him, and walked away. The last thing she remembered hearing as herself was the gun going off.
A/N: For the lovely Shiranai Atsune, thank you for the request! I really hope you like it, because this one was fun to write even though I torched my feels! :) As much as I love Wash/Carolina, I also love York/Carolina and that conflict Carolina might feel about moving on from York. I would do an AU story where she has to choose between Wash and an alive York, but I honestly couldn't tell you which she would choose. Anyways, this got a little darker than I intended, but I hope you like it nonetheless!
EPILOGUE:
Carolina woke with a start, flinging herself up from the bed and away from the bits of Epsilon's memories he had left with her. She looked around wildly, gasping for a breath that wouldn't threaten to suffocate her in the suddenly too-small room. Her hand went to her racing heart, as if she could hold it down and keep it from flying out of her chest.
"Mmph. 'Lina…?" a sleep-heavy voice mumbled beside her in the bed.
Her head whipped to the side, slight panic flaring up at seeing dirty blonde rather than brown before she remembered herself. She wasn't a Freelancer anymore, she was just a soldier still trying to find her place in the mismatched group of sim soldiers she called family. While she may have given her father the pistol, she never had Sigma in her head, she didn't kill York. But York was still dead and she moved on, now lying in a different bunk.
"Carolina?" Wash's voice was more alert now, his blue eyes even paler in the dim light as he sat up next to her, "What's wrong?"
Her hyperventilated breaths choked into sobs and she fell sideways against his chest, unable to control her tears. She felt his arms come up around her, holding her, rocking her slowly, murmuring comforts and support in her hair as she cried even though he wasn't sure what had happened. All she knew in that moment was that Wash was the only thing holding her together, and despite the 'what ifs' and guilt that still ate at her, Carolina felt safe.