Scarlet

When not looking after her sisters, Scarlet would study, getting consistently high grades and good performances. She wanted both to be a role model for her sisters, always on call to help them out with classwork when they needed it, while also wanting to live up to the legacy her parents set before her. In spite of all of the stresses and expectations put upon her by the people around her, she was known for her level head and ability to rise to the occasion whenever asked.

It was through this work ethic and consistently good grades through the years that she was offered the position of her dreams, to follow an apprenticeship into weapons engineering. She'd already taken a few premilinary classes on the subject, and would tinker with whatever weaponry the schools had with the little free time she had, so her talent and passion being noticed was everything she wanted. However, pursuing weapons engineering would mean not only full time military enlistment, but being relocated into one of the domes with higher ranked military activity, away from her family. As much as she wanted to follow her dreams, the guilt of leaving her family, especially her sisters, behind, weighed too heavy on her, and ended with her opting to turn down the chance, and continue her schooling as just a basic soldier with no real speciality, albeit still within the elite program.

Following her decision to not take up weapons engineering, Scarlet graduated as an elite, and was positioned in the same dome she lived on, albeit on the very outskirts, guarding and patrolling where the exit to the surface was supposedly available. Given how her promotion from regular soldier to elite gave her more years of training, she managed to line up her own graduation with Crimson, who'd just become a regular soldier, and had managed to convince her superior to put Crimson on her squad, allowing them to be together in their position. While their outpost was in a miserable place, being in the middle of nowhere, with little connection to the rest of the domes, she was just happy she got to be with her sister, and even got to stay in decently regular touch with Ruby, as she and Crimson would write and recieve letters in return from her, letting them still be connected in some form.

However, the years would grow long. She'd always be told how they were at war, that their outpost served a vital job of making sure invading Inkling forces would be stopped, and yet, nothing ever happened. The worst that she'd ever see was the occasional nudibranch that'd wandered too far, and never once the supposed invading force that was clamoring to get in. Instead, the time simply weighed on her, though she'd never express this to her squad, knowing they needed her as a strong leader, and not the tired, jaded person she could feel herself becoming.

Several years into her enlistment, while out on her usual nightly patrol, a duty she took so she could clear her head and prevent the others from having to stay up as late, she'd found her first ever sign of someone other than her squadmates there in the outskirts. Expecting another nudibranch, she'd instead be caught off guard, having stumbled upon a teenage girl, and a runaway at that. She approached with a cautious hostility, ordering for the girl to show herself, yet never actually drawing her weapon. To her horror, she quickly realized she recognized the teen, being that of May, the best friend of her little sister. While Scarlet and May had never really interacted much, having only met sparsely before Scarlet's full enlistment, she'd still heard a lot about her from the letters Ruby would send, and knew something serious had to have happened to have caused her to be in this situation.

Scarlet knew her duty was to turn her in, she'd heard the radios about the runaways a few months prior, but looking at May, and seeing a scared, hungry child, in desperate need of help, she couldn't bring herself to do it. Instead, making sure to remove her goggles so that May could recognize her, and approaching slowly and carefully, she told her that she wasn't going to turn her in, and that she just wanted to talk. While hesistant, May gave in, having spent the past several months on the run, and desperate for even the slightest bit of safety that Scarlet could provide. Scarlet, while not saying it, was also desperate for someone to talk to, someone who she didn't have to be a soldier around. Seeing how thin and gaunt May was, once Scarlet knew she had to return to her outpost before people would notice, she told May to come back the next night, same time, same place, just for another chat, all for the purpose of giving her the nightly rations intended for herself.

Bringing her rations for the night to the meetup with May, the two continued to talk, with May hesitant to actually talk about what happened and why she's on the run. Scarlet tried to get her to open up a bit more, only to be met with more uncomfortable avoidance and question dodging. However, things would change when she noticed May only just barely picking at her food. It's with horror that Scarlet realizes it's May that's the runaway known to have a young child with them, and that her refusal to eat more than few bites is her trying to save some for a child back wherever she's camped. Finally unable to hide the truth anymore, May would admit everything, telling Scarlet about how she'd been planning to run away with a friend of hers, that it all fell through, and that she realized she could never leave her little sister behind while chasing a better life for herself, once again begging Scarlet not to turn her in.

Having once again been met with the desperate pleading of a child in need, Scarlet couldn't bring herself to do what was expected of her, deciding she couldn't turn in May, regardless of the illegality of her actions. Worst of all, as May recounted her desires to leave, Scarlet found herself uncomfortably close to how she was feeling. She wasn't happy in the domes anymore, she hadn't been for years, and having May so succinctly say everything she'd been feeling for so long felt just as cathartic as it was terrifying. Instead, she told May to come back the next night, that they'd meet again. Unwilling to turn her in, Scarlet had decided she'd do everything in her power to protect them, and keep them safe in any way she could. From that point forward, their meetings became regular, with Scarlet taking more and more rations from her outpost in order to make sure both May and her sister, June, would be fed, even if May never brought June with her. The two would find solace in each other, May having someone to actually talk to about her situation, and Scarlet finally feeling like there was someone in the world who understood the growing displeasure she'd had over Octarian life and the domes as a whole

Unbeknownst to her, Scarlet was not the only person becoming more and more discontent with the way things were, though, for different reasons. While Crimson and Scarlet were close, the communication between them became less and less honest through the years, with Scarlet feeling as though she couldn't share her burdens with Crimson, and Crimson feeling like a failure in comparison to her, but not wanting to open up, knowing it wasn't Scarlet's fault she was struggling. She routinely performed worse than her in school and training, and would face instructors who'd grown used to Scarlet's overachieving, angry and disappointed she wasn't living up to the expectation Scarlet had set. Things had only gotten worse when Scarlet turned down the offer to become a weapons engineering apprentice, as not only did Crimson feel responsible for her giving up on her dreams, as she'd been unable to score high enough to apply for the programs, but would then have to hear the lamenting of the adults in their life, of how Scarlet had such talent but gave it all up. Unwilling to talk to her about how she'd been feeling, however, Crimson held onto her frustrations and her feelings of inferiority, things smoothing out over their years in the outpost together, for the most part.

However, Crimson took notice of Scarlet's more and more frequent disappearances, leaving earlier and staying out later, and the way she never answered where she'd gone beyond just simply saying it was another patrol. When rations started to go missing, and Scarlet, normally always ready to solve whatever issues the squad was happening, was dismissive and refusing to look into it beyond just claiming a stray nudibranch got in, Crimson grew increasingly suspicious. Finally deciding she had enough, Crimson decided to track where she'd go each night, to find out what she was hiding from her.

Crimson left before Scarlet did, following the tracks she'd left from her previous trips. It's there that she would find the evidence of Scarlet's betrayal, May, having grown used to their meetings, waiting once again in their normal spot. It'd only be a few minutes later that she'd catchescarlet red handed, showing up with extra rations in hand, freely and openly interacting with and sheltering a fugitive. Jumping out from where she was hiding, Crimson demanded to know what was going on, why Scarlet was aiding this criminal, why she'd hide this from her. Scarlet tried to explain, to reason with her, but Crimson wasn't looking for any actual justification. Instead, she gave her a simple offer, hand over the fugitive, and Crimson will look the other way and pretend this never happened, or turn herself in as a traitor to the Octarian military.

Scarlet wanted so desperately for Crimson to see reason, to understand that May wasn't a threat nor a criminal, just a scared, lost teen in search of a better life, but Crimson wouldn't see it. To her, all that mattered was that Scarlet had to choose between her family, and protecting a girl she barely knew. Regardless of how much she loved Crimson, and how much she wanted to be there for her family, Scarlet couldn't do it. She couldn't willingly hand in this child to be arrested. She only gets halfway through her saddened declaration of protection for May when Crimson attacks her. Having already pulled out a pocket knife she carried with her when she'd seen May in the first place, the realization that Scarlet was choosing to, in her eyes, abandon her family and her people, caused her to lunge at her, aiming to hurt. Scarlet was expecting a poor reaction, for a screaming match, for an arrest, maybe even a scuffle, but she what she wasn't expecting was the sheer level of violence Crimson resorted to.

Genuinely afraid Crimson might kill her, and in sheer panic and self defense, Scarlet managed to draw her weapon, managing to get off a good enough shot to get Crimson off of her, having previously been entirely pinned down, and just barely managing to keep the knife away from her face and causing more damage than it already had. Knowing that she's now a traitor to the Octarian military, and having just physically attacked her own sister, even if in self defense, Scarlet knew she couldn't stay, instead bolting the moment she got out from underneath Crimson, trying to get as far away as possible. She would run for as long as she can until she physically couldn't anymore, finally having to assess the damage that was done. She'd managed to stop Crimson from doing much more damage than her initial attack had done, but she'd still done a lot, and, using the little first aid she could perform with what few supplies she'd had on her, Scarlet would try her best to patch herself up, only really being able to use a few sparse alchohol wipes to clean the wounds. With nowhere left to go, knowing Crimson would go back to her squad and report everything that happened, Scarlet would resolve herself to get to the surface, the only place she could see herself actually being safe.