Dakota

"I... Kissed you? ...And then we broke up on the same night?"

- Dakota to Sky the morning after she got wasted Dakota Harleth Ryan is a soldier that arrived in Blood Gulch during the 3rd Generation. Dakota is sweet and somewhat innocent, always looking to make friends. She joined the military looking for adventure and a chance to practice her FPS skills. Shortly after, though; she found out the only thing that she can accurately aim is a shotgun.

Brief History
Initially, Dakota was unaware of the ongoing peace between the Red and Blue teams, almost attacking the Reds unprovoked. After her Blue leaders informed her about the situation in Blood Gulch, she became content with the peace and freedom around the canyon, but was still in disbelief for some time. After getting wrapped up in a love triangle and untangling herself from a rough crush, she started seeing her fellow hopeless romantic Quarters, and they eventually fell in love.

Dakota quickly developed a positive reputation with most of the canyon and fit in well among even the crowds of people that are hard to break into. She is an experienced fighter and can occasionally hold her own pretty well when sparring with the other experienced soldiers (such as Blaise, Campbell and Quarters).

Dakota was part of Fireteam Charlie who attempted to take a Splinter outpost down and terminate Agent Louisiana. During the mission, Dakota found herself alone with Louisiana and had a rough fight that almost killed her, while her best friend Font watched helplessly while fighting a grunt Splinter soldier. Believing she was dead, Louisiana fled the outpost aboard a Pelican with some minor injuries. Dakota made a speedy recovery and one week later set out with Fireteam Delta to help rescue Hawaii and Campbell from Fenton. While freeing Campbell, they were trapped by Louisiana, who quickly knocked out Oregon and fought Dakota and Campbell simultaneously. This fight was close, but the sim troopers used the tight space they were in to their advantage. Campbell ended the fight with his pistol and allowed Dakota to deliver the finishing shot herself.

When the situation with Green Team arose, Dakota chose to fight against them and joined Purple Team.

Backstory
In southern Virginia, born and raised, is where Dakota spent most of her days. She grew up on a farm with her parents, Pete and Michelle, her dog, Sammy, and her horse, Mayo. Throughout her childhood, Dakota's parents were often busy with either farm-work or legal work, which left Dakota to her own devices until she was 12. "We'll play tomorrow." was a phrase she heard often growing up.

Being the easily bored child that she was, Dakota's favorite way to pass the time (when not doing farm work) was to take her horse and ride into the forest, often going as far as the nearby mountains, behind her house until she got lost. From there she would attempt to navigate her way back home. She would find her way back before sundown every time except for one. The one time she didn't, she almost died when a mountain lion attacked her in the dark, but was saved by Wilton Calibri; a fellow farmer and neighbor with a shotgun. This event would sever as one of the most crucial points in Dakota's life, as it not only was how she met her best friend, Cambria Calibri, but it also played a subtle part in starting Dakota's decision to join the military.

After the attack, Pete and Michelle blocked up most of Dakota's free time in order to her from going back into the forest. Karate lessons were the dominant force there. While fun at first for Dakota, the instructor quickly came to hate her and promptly made the classes a nightmare for the seven years that Dakota took them. Instead to getting to practice moves, she was the only they practiced on. When she told her parents what was happening, they ignored her plight and forced her to stay in the class. Two good things and one bad came from this.

The good: Dakota became a durable and decent fighter after teaching Cambria the basics and sparring with her. She would later use her newfound skills to challenge any of Cambria's boyfriends to a "Duel of Worthiness".

The bad: it created a rift between Dakota and her parents because Dakota felt as if they didn't care by keeping her in the class.

Wanting more from life than raising cows and growing corn, Dakota considered the military. To her it was a chance to leave behind the Podunk town she grew up in and make something with her life (maybe she would even find adventure and put her skills at shooter games to good use). Dakota signed up for the military as soon as she turned 18 and formally joined the summer after she finished high school, much to her parent's and Cambria's disapproval.

Basic training was a breeze to her (working on a farm your whole life can do that) and she excelled at hand-to-hand combat due to her time spent practicing karate.

Dakota was stationed in two locations before finally reaching Blood Gulch; Sidewinder and Landfall.

Other than the freezing cold, not much came from her time spent at Sidewinder, as she was only there for 6 months. Landfall, however, is the reason the UNSC relocated Dakota to Blood Gulch outpost.

When insurrectionist struck the base, Dakota's friend and fellow soldier, Lucas Abernathy, was rendered incapacitated by and explosion. He begged Dakota to kill him to avoid being taken hostage. Dakota painfully did so after Lucas convinced her that they were out of time and that she had to survive.

While killing one of her closest friends was traumatic enough for Dakota to have a mental breakdown and forget the event ever happened, the military saw it differently. Based on eyewitness accounts they mistook the mercy kill as an intentional team kill. Instead of court-martialing Dakota though, they sent her to her current base, Blood Gulch Outpost #1, after making up and telling her a lie that she was being transferred because Landfall's outpost was no longer needed and that Lucas, the man she killed, was alive and well.

Trivia

 * Dakota is left handed.
 * For seemingly no reason, she physically can not high-five or fist-bump.
 * Dakota can't not accurately aim any guns other than shotguns
 * During an interview in 2015, Dakota's writer revealed that she named the character "Dakota Ryan" so that her flair on the RP would show as "Private Ryan". A reference to the popular movie, "Saving Private Ryan".
 * Dakota hates pop tarts after choking on 2 and 1/4 of them, almost dying, and having to receive 3 units of CPR from Max.
 * Naturally, Dakota speaks with a very backwoods accent, but she started hiding it behind a general american accent soon after she joined the military. Dakota's creator said that Dakota naturally sounds like, "those kids who only wear camo, drive tractors, and talk about mud bogging."