Clyde Dawson

Clyde Dawson is an expert in infiltration and lockpicking who served in the UNSC supersoldier project, FREELANCER, under the name of Agent York. Known to be one of the best in the program, his skills proved invaluable to the many missions conducted within the project. After Director Leonard Church's arrest and imprisonment, Clyde served alongside several other FREELANCER agents in the closing days of the Human-Covenant War, before aiding and following his close friend Victoria O'Connell in going rogue from the UNSC. In the post-war era, he was a key member in the guerrilla warfare units alongside his fellow FREELANCERS, who took the fight to the opponents of the Interspecies Union, while remaining out of the UNSC's jurisdiction.
==Biography==
===Early Life===
====Childhood (2527—2546)====
Clyde was born as the second child in his family and the younger brother to Amelia Dawson. He was brought in the metropolitan city by his parents, who were both Marines and were constantly being transferred to other planets for various operations. With their frequent absences, Clyde grew up mostly with Amelia and had no proper parental figure to influence him positively or help him figure out what he wanted to do with his life. He was frequently disobedient towards Amelia and was known as the slacker of the family, which often resulted in her berating him for being lazy, or as she liked to call him, "insubordinate". He was also the only one in the family who did not want to enlist in the UNSC, stating that he had no interest in losing his life early. This attitude would leave his family with a profound disapproval in him, although often times his parents would be glad he didn't have to bear witness to the horrific events that took place during the war against the Covenant.
====Adolescence (2540—2546)====
When Amelia joined the Marine Corps in 2539, Clyde only became more despondent and went from being lazy to outright causing mayhem on a whim. He found that he had an affinity for picking locks of all things, a trait he had discovered when he started "running with the wrong crowd". He also got into fights frequently, and although he often often seen as the kid of the gang, he learned to hold his own fairly well with only his bare fists. As Clyde grew into a teenager, he became a petty thief of sorts, breaking into places more for the fun of it than for actual personal gain. Nonetheless, his endeavours was something that often got him into trouble with the local law enforcement and especially with his parents when they were on leave. When Clyde reached of age, Amelia urged Clyde to start doing something with his life.
By 2546, the war was becoming worse in the Inner Colonies. Conflicts between the Covenant and the UNSC tore their way through the colonies and with each passing day, the threat of an attack on Reach loomed closer. Amelia had been sending money to Clyde so that he could make his way to university, where he would study the design and function of human artificial intelligence. He managed to find a personal interest from learning AI theory and sometimes even working with them. The turning point for him came in 2548, a month after his graduation, when he received word that his parents were killed during an engagement on . Clyde sank into a constant state of depression and became unmotivated to move forward with his life.
====Early Adult Years (2546—2549)====
As Amelia had long since been gone from Reach after joining the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers in 2543, Clyde ended up on his own after leaving university. Jobless and unsatisfied with his life, he only came closer to giving up with each passing day. One night in 2549, his luck came around when he headed to Club Errera with his childhood friends to drown out his sorrows and thoughts with alcohol. Not long after his "gang" discreetly slipped away and left him alone with nothing but his lighter, he was unexpectedly approached by 19-year old Victoria O'Connell. When several of the bar patrons had started fawning over her good looks, Clyde showed a spark of compassion and stood up for her, asking them to "knock it off" and quit bothering her. However, this ended up causing a bar fight, in which Clyde and Victoria had to fight their way out of the club with only their bare fists. Victoria was greatly impressed with Dawson's skills in hand-to-hand combat, and the two ended up taking a long night-time stroll through the city. Feeling like she was the first person he could trust in a very long time, Clyde told her of his life as well as his own "talents". Intrigued and sympathetic at his predicament, Victoria revealed that she was part of a new UNSC supersoldier program called Project FREELANCER asked him if he was interested in joining her. Tired of feeling like his life was meaningless and interested in staying in touch with her, he agreed.
===Project: FREELANCER===
====Training====
Clyde passed the physical test as well his knowledge of equipment usage with flying colours in March 2549, and was believed to have a promising career in the project. Having never received military training before, Clyde, now under the assigned name of Agent New York, began his training alongside the other accepted Freelancers, which at the time numbered about thirty or so in total. During this time, he stayed on close terms with Agent Carolina, although he didn't really speak much to her other friends, among them Agent Connecticut, and the twins North and South Dakota, all of whom were among the top rankings.
However, it wasn't long before York began to recede back into his old habits, not taking his training very seriously and spending more time thinking about Carolina than focusing on doing well for himself. Although he continued to do fairly well in combat training, he began to do poorly in theory classes and started to slip in the rankings. The majority of his fellow agents came to the belief York was nothing but a slacker, with Carolina's friends wondering why she even brought him into the program. After multiple inquiries with the Counsellor, he came very close to being washed out of the program, although Carolina adamantly stood up for him and convinced the Director to keep him in the project. But eventually her patience began to wear thin as well, and she berated him constantly for once again wasting his potential.
By the second year of training in early 2550, there were fifteen additional agents added to the program, and York found himself ranked near the bottom of it all. But he soon heard that the Director was beginning to wash out some agents and replace them with new recruits, and would soon afterward assign the Freelancers into permanent teams. York realized that he would have to do better to stay in the program, as well as make it into the top eight rankings in order to earn a spot on Carolina's team. Although he had only a single week to accomplish both tasks, he became extremely self-driven and worked harder than he ever did before. His training ethic intensified almost overnight, and he spent countless hours studying, catching up on classes, and pushing himself to his limit in combat training. His efforts paid off, and by the end of the week he skyrocketed to the #5 spot, bumping down three other agents on the leaderboard and knocking Agent Montana out of the top 8. Having finally proven himself to the others and impressing Carolina immensely, York took his place on Fireteam Flamberge alongside Agents North and South Dakota. With Carolina assigned as leader, Flamberge would prove to be the project's most distinguished and effective team ever.
====Weapons Factory====
By July 2550, York had risen to the #2 spot on the leaderboard, below only Carolina herself. He was reassigned to replace Agent Wyoming as team leader of Fireteam Rainmaker, something that created further friction between the two Freelancers. His spot was replaced by a newer member of the project, Agent Washington, and in addition to Wyoming and Agent Maine, York was assigned another subordinate, Agent Connecticut.
For the remainder of the project, Fireteam Rainmaker would continue to work closely with Flamberge, as the two teams were made up of most of FREELANCER's top-ranked agents and would be assigned the most challenging missions.
====Asteroid Field====
====Ancient Forerunner Ruins====
====Training Incident====
====The Sarcophagus====
====Scrap Yard====
====Longshore Shipyards====
====Sparring Match====
===Uprising===
====Hunt For the Director====
===UNSC Operations===
===Post-War===
==Trivia==
*Clyde's birthdate is February 27th, the exact same date his player Stellar Elite in RP:Red vs Blue: Revolution, joined the Halo Fanon site.
*Perhaps unintended, but Clyde's journey from being a rebellious n'er-do-well, to a brilliant but lazy slacker and finally becoming a respected member within a specific group parallels his player's activity on Halo Fanon.