Okay you guys, I felt that it was necessary that I should expand on Big JZ and Big Z for you guys so that you know them a bit better once the next season of Red vs Blue Authors Edition came out. There's been quite a trend in the RvB section involving off-shoots of the now very popular story Red vs Blue Authors Edition written by UnknownNemesis98 and I just couldn't help myself. So here we are.

New Mission

When Z touched down at Ridgeline he had no idea what to expect at the new base he'd been assigned to. He'd been to every base that Red Army operated, from the largest garrison of Reds at Rat's Nest to the insane flag worshipping Reds of Battle Creek. But this was a new one for even an experienced soldier like him. The base was completely leveled, nothing of it remained intact. The former bunker type design was now a pile of wreckage, unrecognizable to anyone that hadn't seen it before its destruction. Yet here BIG Z was, standing all alone at what his orders said was Outpost 18-A, to be under the command of a grizzly old Major, someone that according to the file was a man who demanded respect but was too focused on training to be concerned with the Blues who just kept to themselves on their side of the wooded valley.

"Well let's see if anyone's alive," he grumbled to himself as he walked towards the remains of the base, Sniper Rifle aimed and ready.

He ducked under the caved in roof of the door, or just a hole in the wall, and entered what must have been the central room of the base itself. The whole place was covered in soot from the blast of something hitting the base from above it seemed. Z crouched down to examine a piece of the base that seemed to sparkle in the intense sunlight.

Glass? He thought to himself picking up the dirty silvery material. It didn't look like glass, but it sure felt like it, it was smooth from intense heat and was definitely the strange material that was left after a plasma weapon discharge. He dropped the material as soon as he thought of the words plasma and weapon and pulled the charging handle of his rifle back to bring in a large caliber round into the chamber. He pulled it tight to his right shoulder and scanned the area, clear. Ducking to the edge of the base he poked his head up and looked through the cracked wall to scan the area around the base for any alien presences. Seeing nothing he looked back to the base to scan for the remains of any Reds he could find, if there had been an attack then he would need the helmet cam footage of the soldiers stationed here, assuming that there was anything left to find. Their armor was tough, but plasma would turn it into the same material that crunched beneath his feet with every step. But there was nothing left to find, he found a crate of relatively intact equipment and rations and he stored that information away, he might need it later on. So Z squirmed his way out of the base and carefully made his way to Blue Base, maybe he'd have better luck there. He sprinted towards the blackened pine trees in front of the base and leaned against it. He scanned the area and saw that there had been a battle here recently. There was blood on the ground along with a lot of boot prints and the strange alien hoof prints seemed to be all around. Bullet strikes on trees also dotted the splintered sides of the trees and on the chipped sides of the rocks.

"There must have been one hell of a fight here," Z whispered to himself as he crept towards the creek in the center of the valley. There was the remnants of a Warthog there at the crossing of the river. Gas fires burnt the metal plating of the Warthog to crisp and charred the two Red troops inside of it. Part of the midsection of the vehicle seemed to have simply melted away like it had been carved like butter. The flames were only small trails of smoke that reached into the sky and melded with the fog of the forest itself. Z knelt next to still warm vehicle wreckage and yanked the tags of the two Red soldiers, and then sought the video logs in the back of their helmets, yanking them clean out. But what he saw was that the clips were gone, either destroyed or burnt useless. Z pocketed the two tags, neither of which were the Major he was supposed to have reported in to. Getting up, Z followed the trail towards the charred ruins of Blue Base. As he walked up he found the ruins of a tank blasted in half by a massive plasma explosion. Its driver lay to the side, leaning against a tree in Blue armor. Z collected this Blue's tags as he carefully navigated up the trail towards the Blue Base.

Carefully Z crept to the small hill that was directly opposite Blue Base, laying down in the grass he propped the stand of his rifle up and zoomed in on the also destroyed base that just so happened to have a few bodies lying around it. They were all Red and Blue. Six Reds with Three Blues all lying around outside, their armor charred from being shot by plasma weaponry. Bullets pock marked the trees he hid behind as he looked around for any signs of hostiles. But he saw none. Getting up from behind one of the trees he trudged forward watching the rocky cliffs for any signs of ambush but kept his movement towards the base.

"Hello?" he called loudly and firmly, getting no response, "Anyone here?"

Nothing responded, so Z moved into the base, crawling over a piece of wreckage he saw that a Blue lay crushed underneath it as well. But when Z reached down to grab his tags out of respect he found that they weren't there.

Rearing to his full height Z scanned the area, being extra attentive as he looked for anything that might have harbored danger. He could just barely register an animal-like breathing from some unseen source in the very room that he was inside. Z had heard the stories of Elites and their cloaking technology and knew what to look for, a shimmering ofair meant there was one of those aliens right there, plasma weapons ready to slice and dice. So Z switched his vision to keeping an eye for the telltale ripple effect.

"I know you're here split jaw," Z hissed, not moving from his spot, "Show yourself you coward!"

In that instant Z saw the glow of an energy sword light up the room and charge towards him, Z ducked back outside, rolling to avoid the slice of the deadly weapon which cut deep into the metal he had been next to a second before. He saw the glow of the sword expand into the glowing purple armored figure of a Covenant Elite. The large creature stepped out and stood before Z and assumed a fighting position ready to face him.

"If you wish to die with honor then I will grant your wish human," the Elite hissed.

"Okay," Z said, snapping his rifle up and firing a single bullet through the Elite's skull, "I'm not stupid. I just know that I have a gun and you don't, I win, bitch."

At that moment the sound of clapping echoed throughout the base as a dark black and blue figure stepped into the light carrying an Assault Rifle and a SPARTAN Laser on his back. His armor was a spitting image of Z's except the blood red stripes on BIG Z's armor were mirrored instead by the standard blue of Blue Army. Z recognized this figure, he would have kicked himself for not knowing the kid in front of him, he was both family and he was the enemy. He was his brother, BIG JZ of the Blue Army Tiger Platoon. His own unit, former unit's primary rivals and had fought against one another since the first day. But they had fought like the devil against one another everywhere they met, leading to the eventual devastation of the bases they fought at.

"Well done, using your long gun to win a battle you couldn't win in the first place, as always," JZ said, leaning against the main structure of the base.

"If you have tool, use it," Z replied to his brother who hadn't moved an inch.

"You always did live by that saying, and I guess it served you better than it did your platoon," JZ chuckled nonchalantly.

Z raised his rifle to his brother's face and hissed in rage, "You have no right to talk about them. Especially after what we did to your unit at Deep Freeze!"

Now JZ simmered in anger at the mention of his own Tiger Platoon, "You guys ambushed us while we were recovering the Blues that were massacred there, by you!"

"And I'm telling you for umpteenth time, it wasn't us!" Z yelled at his brother who pointed at him in fury.

"We lost a third of our strength! Six men and women!" JZ yelled back.

"Well that we did do," Z said, conceding a point.

"I ought to kill you for that!"

"Go ahead and try!" Z responded, stepping back and placing his sniper rifle on his back and assuming a fighting stance.

Big JZ charged at his brother jumping into the air throwing a downward aimed punch at Z's head, but only to have it blocked and countered with a kick to the ankles which the younger brother blocked with a kick back with the opposite foot. Then Z attacked again with a series of jabs that JZ blocked with precision, weaving and dodging the powerful blows as he took steps back towards the base until his back was up against the slagging wall. JZ ducked as another combo of punches were thrown with grim precision and power and the ruined wall took the blows badly, bending and cracking from the hits it took until Z landed a right hook that wedged his hand into the metal and refused to budge. JZ rolled under his brother's arm and tried to go on the attack but Z just applied his full strength and wrenched out his hand along with a piece of metal and batted his brother across the face with it, scratching the visor. But he took it in stride, spinning with the hit, kicking up as he spun and caught his brother in the gut hard, and then then tried to land a knee in the face which was blocked and then flowed by a vicious elbow to the face from below and then a straight kick to the chest that flung JZ back. Z finally yanked the metal off of his hand and tossed the slab of material at his brother and was surprised to see his brother dodge it by rolling backwards from his position and stand back up ready to fight again as they closed in again.

At that moment a glowing blue orb landed right in between the two brothers and they both looked down to see that there was an activated plasma grenade right in between the two of them.

"Plasma grenade?" JZ asked coolly, settling into a whole new mindset.

"Yep," Z replied, quickly forgetting that he and his brother had been fighting not a moment before.

"We'd better move real quick."

"Agreed."

The two of them rolled away from the pulsating blue sphere right as it exploded sending a wave of super-heated plasma in all directions, turning the area into a dark glass crater. The Red and Blue brothers pulled their weapons and braced themselves for a fight. Z held his sniper rifle loosely, ready to maneuver when needed and JZ grasped his prized SPARTAN Laser and proceeded to charge it as the figures of a half dozen Elites decloaked in front of them.

"Six on two," JZ counted, picking out his targets.

"Faced worse," Z shrugged.

"Sure you have."

At that moment each of the Elites lit their energy swords and charged at the two humans, roaring loudly as they attacked. Big Z dropped to a knee and aimed right at the lead Elite's head pulled the trigger, the bullet punched clean through the shields at such close range and a shower of purple gore spouted out of the back of his target's head as the others closed in to close range. JZ started charging his weapon which began to glow a bright blue with each pulse. The first Elite slashed at him, but he successfully ducked and aimed his laser right at the thin waist of the alien, unleashing a solid blue beam that cut the Elite in half at the waist, vaporizing both the armor and the flesh of the Elite. JZ then rolled to avoid another attempted attack and yanked out his Assault Rifle and aimed at the farthest Elite, pulling the trigger and hitting him with a pelting of rounds that gave him pause as JZ then turned and tackled the next Elite and hit him square in the left leg, knocking him off balance and putting both Elites back in his crosshairs. Z was embroiled in very hard core hand to hand fighting with the Elites he found himself up against. He dodged and weaved slamming the butt of his rifle into the face of one Elite making it spin away. But Z heard the stomping of an Elite coming up right behind him and whirled around grasping his .50 caliber rifle in one hand barrel shoved the Elite right in the shoulder blowing the sword arm of the alien clean off. But that had been the end of his clip, and he had no time to reload, so Z pulled out his favorite possession, his two foot long serrated Bowie Knife. Z ducked under the attempted attack by the last elite and thrust his knife up and into the Minor's skull, breaking the hard bone in one stab. Purple blood ran down the blade as Z shoved the alien back onto its back and shoved the knife in further, hearing the satisfying cracking and popping of the shattered skull grinding against itself. The Elite died almost instantly, and Z stood up to see his brother holding fire a final burst into an Elite trying to get up off the ground.

"We need to get outta here," Z said, reloading a clip into his rifle and readying himself for any more attacks from a cloaked Elite.

"Oh ya think?!"

"Gather any supplies and ammo you can, there's a base not too far from here, Valhalla, from there we can alert Command."

Turning around, Z hustled on back to Red Base, ignoring the stealthy careful approach that he had used to get to the base in the first place. He remembered the stash of supplies he'd found inside one of the storage crates and ducked inside the blown apart building and immediately started to pack up a backpack filled with rations, water purification tablets, an extra camelback for water, and ammo and grenades. Satisfied, he strapped the hard shelled pack to his armor and hustled back out towards the Blue Base but met his brother on the bridge where the Reds' Warthog had met its end.

"You ready to go?" Z asked, getting a nod from his brother.

"The bases are to the East, let's move," JZ replied, turning to follow his half a foot taller brother.

So they left off, running at a good clip towards the Valhalla base where they hope they'd be able to rendezvous with more Reds and Blues and hopefully real UNSC troops. Running through the creek bed they climbed the canyon wall next to the waterfall that fed crisp clean water into the valley below. The two expertly rock hopped their way up the steep wall and finally reached the wooded plateau where they found something interesting.

"Look," JZ pointed out, kneeling next to a small set of boot prints.

"Boot prints," Z agreed, "Fresh ones too. See how the water hasn't filled them in yet?"

Indeed on the rocky muddy river bed the tracks were still well defined and were very much fresh even to an unseasoned tracker, but Z had grown up tracking and his training had honed that skill to a point. Z looked at the tracks and saw that they led East, towards the Valhalla bases. He instantly ran through several possibilities in his head that could explain the mysterious tracks. Survivor? Scout? Something else?

"What do you think?" JZ whispered looking down the trail of tracks into the forest of pine trees and dripping wet fog.

"No idea, but whoever it is, is headed East, where we're going."

Just like that the two soldiers took off at a quick jog, crashing through the brush and pounded through the mud, caking themselves with water dripping from the forest of pine needles that brushed against their armor and helmets. Mud covered their boots from the ankles down from stepping in the wet rocky mud of the creek that held the set of tracks they now followed. The forest was quiet and quaint as the expert soldiers continued at their brisk pace, hopping over rocks and logs, taking care to be quiet but make time. Just like the way their quarry seemed to be. They were excellent cross country runners, even at their large sizes and nimbly and proficiently ran, jumped, and slid over, under and through every obstacle they came across.

"See the tracks, their getting more recent," Z said, rock hopping from boulder to boulder and running up a log, parkour style.

"Which means?" JZ asked, hopping over the creek from rock to rock as the terrain began to get thicker with boulders as the creek seemed to get thinner and thinner.

"We're catching up."

"The tracks have a lot of toe kick, and the stride is getting longer. They've picked up the pace," Big Z said, hitting the muddy ground and running at the same pace. Following the tracks like a trained Blood Hound.

"Then let's close the gap," JZ said running ahead of Z as they entered a rocky gap the creek began to run through.

The two soldiers began to really turn on the gas, straining themselves as they began to fall back on their training and conditioning to try and speed towards the person they were following. But it was at that moment that they lost the trail, the muddy boot prints were gone, and their quarry had disappeared. Like out of a spy movie the prey seemed to have turned the tables on the Red and Blue. Their nerves went on edge as they slowed the pace and spread to both sides of the creek bed, ducking and weaving back and forth between boulders and logs.

"I don't like this," Z said, looking around, aiming his sniper rifle into the darkening forest. The sounds of the forest seemed to disappear and envelop the two brothers in absolute silence and darkness.

"Keep going," JZ whispered tersely moving forward with Assault Rifle raised.

The two continued going until they reached wide open plains and saw that the creek had been fed by the a small spring that drained into two directions. And it was then that the two saw their quarry, a solider in an aqua marine suit of armor far off in the distance moving at a running pace. Z and JZ halted and took cover in the tree line, where they were able to stay hidden thanks to their dark armor and the dark surroundings. Raising his rifle to his eye Z scanned the figure quickly determining a threat assessment.

"Well, he's a she. And she's a Blue."

"Which means get your finger away from that trigger bro," JZ responded sarcastically, well aware of his brother's prowess with that particular weapon.

"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Yeah, come on, let's catch her," his brother replied, getting up and leading the way at a quick jog aimed at catching the very fast woman in front of them by two hundred yards. They saw her turn and then stop as if she had seen them, and then sprinted off in the opposite direction towards a dip in the land. They tried to keep up but ended up losing ground on her, and were easily outpaced by this quick Blue.

"Man," JZ panted, "She's got some stamina, I wonder if…"

"Finish that sentence and you'll regret it," Z hissed, also quite winded.

"Fucking Red."

"Blue delinquent."

But it was that moment that they realized that they had walked right into something they had not seen coming at all. From the waist high grass raised at least a half dozen armored humans of all colors. They held an assortment of weapons, from the Shotgun of the one in Red to the energy sword of the one in the same teal and the assorted Assault Rifles and Battle Rifles of the pink, blue, maroon, and cobalt blue troops. They had the two brothers completely surrounded and well and truly surprised.

"I'll admit, didn't see that coming," Z grumbled as they went back to back.

"I did, I just didn't say anything."

"Bullshit!"

"Drop your weapons agents," the one in cobalt and yellow said sternly.

"Or taste my lethal brand of Red Army justice," the Red one said confidently as they all closed in on the brothers.

"Oh yeah, got you bitches right where we want you," the one holding the sword bragged.

Z and JZ carefully readied themselves for a fight but when the one in cobalt circled them and saw Z he stopped and lowered his weapon.

"It can't be," he said quietly.

"Wash?" the maroon one asked quietly.

"I know who this one is, or at least I knew of him. Stand down guys, they're not agents," he said, "They're Tigers, a Red and a Blue. He's the last of his kind."

"How do you know us?" Big Z asked evenly, not letting any emotion taint his voice.

"Because I saw your team's assault on Freelancer Command. You were the one who killed Delaware and killed your own CO."

"You killed your CO?!" the red one yelled in obvious irritation.

"He wasn't my CO. He was some fool that got my team mates killed along with his own men. He shot and killed my Sergeant! He had it coming."

"Calm down soldier," Wash replied.

"And how did you see us? The Blues were nowhere near our objective!" Z replied.

"Because I'm not a Blue, my name is Agent Washington."

"A Freelancer?" JZ piped up.

"That's right," a new voice said from behind the two, they both whirled around to see the same woman they'd pursued right behind them with a magnum and a grapple pistol on her thighs, "I'm Agent Carolina, I have a proposition for you two, if you're interested in getting even with the same man that created us Freelancers and the one responsible for the deaths of those Reds and Blues in Ridgeline."

"So those ones are dead too, that's the third base we've found with no survivors," Washington responded.

"Yeah and…" Carolina froze as she put a hand to her ear, "…another base just got hit."

"Which one?" Sarge asked.

"Blood Gulch."

"Come on men," Sarge said, running behind Carolina as the rest of the group followed behind them towards the valley known as Valhalla.

"You coming?" JZ asked his brother who hadn't said a word since he'd found out there were two Freelancers present.

"They're Freelancers, you know what that means."

"I know, but there are Reds and Blues in trouble, and you should know what that means," JZ said sternly.

"It means vengeance will have to wait. Come on, we have some more split jaws to kill little brother."

Okay, not my best work but it gives you an idea of the JZ/Z relationship. And so there you guys go. If you want I can write more. So review and tell me what you think.