The sun, as always, was hanging high above Valhalla. In the few weeks since the death of Meta, the canyon had no longer been deserted. The Reds and Blues had returned to their respective bases, not knowing (or at least, not caring enough to figure out) anywhere else to go. Nobody complained about returning there, after everything that had happened, it made no sense to anyone to part ways now. With Sarge finally realizing the war was fake, there was no more fighting, which (to Grifs' relief) meant less work. The soldiers each had their own ways of adjusting to their new lives within the former freelancer training outpost.

Sarge, with no more enemies to fight, kept himself busy by working on repairing Lopez, as well as occasionally training with Washington, who was having a hard time losing his freelancer habits. Simmons, due to both boredom and his ever present desire to kiss Sarges' ass, was helping with the repairs to Lopez. Grif spent the majority of his time napping in his room, which Sarge and Simmons continued to yell at him for. But due to Sarge technically having no authority over him, and the fact that he generally would drown out Simmons' complaining, they couldn't get him out of his room.

The Blues did very little as well. Tucker pretty much sat around watching T.V. while Caboose usually spent his day following Wash around, much to the annoyance of the former freelancer. Doc, who did indeed seem to have developed Stockholm syndrome, did this as well, when he wasn't trying to find creative ways to "encourage friendship and brotherhood" between all the soldiers in the canyon. All in all, things had been rather uneventful.

This day started no different, the Reds and Blues going about their normal business, none of them actually leaving their bases. To any onlooker, it would have appeared that the canyon was deserted.

And that was exactly how it looked to the soldier standing on one of the cliffs overlooking Valhalla. He wore standard mark VI armor, dark green in color with a teal trim. He looked over the canyon, looking at the bases, the waterfall, and the crashed Pelican. He stared at the downed ship for a long moment before commenting "Well, I guess this is the right place"

A shimmering red figure appeared on his shoulder "I told you this was the correct place before we even arrived here"

The soldier rolled his eyes "I know, I know. I should never doubt you. Can we skip this and just head down there?"

"As you wish" the figure replied before vanishing.

The soldier sighed and walked down into the canyon, heading in the direction of the Pelican, passing Red base. "And you're sure these bases are empty?"

The figure reappeared "Positive. The remaining soldiers here were killed shortly after the arrival of agent-"

"Maine." he finished for him

"Yes, agent Maine."

"Remind me, which AI did he get on his little visit to this place?"

"I believe he obtained both Gamma and Omega"

"So Wyoming and Texas then."

"Correct"

"I still can't believe Maine would have been able to kill them both, unless one had killed the other before he arrived"

"It's possible, the two had something of a rough history"

"I remember" he sighed, stopping for a moment. He thought for a moment on the two freelancers who had met their ends in this canyon. His thoughts were quickly interrupted by the shimmering companion on his shoulder.

"Warning, motion detected from the Red base."

"What? You said the bases were empty" he growled, readying his battle rifle and staring intently at the entrance to the base. He had not waited long when a soldier in maroon armor emerged. He stopped immediately at the site of the green armored soldier, and quickly noticed the rifle aimed at him.

"Oh fuck!" the terrified soldier yelled, before retreating back into the base. A few moments later, a soldier in standard issue red armor and carrying a shotgun jumped from the top of the base, landing right in front of him.

"Freeze dirtbag!" the newly arrived red soldier demanded, shotgun aimed at the other mans' head.

"You need to back away right now…." he replied. "And watch who you call dirtbag."

The two stared at each other, weapons aimed for killing shots. Neither moved or said anything for a few seconds, before the green armored man stated "I said back away. And drop you weapon while you're at it."

"Son, I know you just met me, but one thing you should know. Nobody, and I mean nobody, makes me get rid of my shotgun."

"I said drop it!" he growled, raising his rifle to aim at the mans' head.

"And I said, shotgun."

"Yes, you said shotgun, what's your point?" He paused at the sound of an engine. He turned toward the noise to see a warthog come around the side of the base, the maroon soldier manning the gun while an orange armored soldier drove. He quickly turned and delivered a backhanded punch to the red armored soldiers' head and kicked the shotgun from his hand. He then quickly rolled out of the way of the Warthog, which would have crushed him flat.

He got to his feet as the vehicle turned around, the gunner immediately firing on him. Moving quickly, he took cover behind a large rock. He lobbed a grenade over it towards the Warthog before falling forward as something slammed against the back of his head. Growling and turning over, he saw the red armored soldier, standing above him, shotgun aimed at his face.

"Got ya now dirtbag, you just got Sarged."

Narrowing his eyes, the soldier in green kicked the shotgun, sending it flying out of its owners' hand. He smirked inside his helmet, getting to his feet and catching it, shooting at the other mans' head. The shot missed as the target rolled around to the other side of the rock. He was about to pursue, but stopped as several shots hit the ground right in front of him. He growled and turned in the direction the projectiles had come from, to see the other two soldiers in the warthog.

"Damnit Simmons! How the hell did you miss?"

He growled and began running towards the vehicle, and the maroon one, apparently called Simmons, panicked, seeming to forget he had a powerful turret aimed at his opponent.

"Shut up and drive Grif, hurry!"

He ran faster as Grif attempted to back up "Iota, activate strength increase."

"Acknowledged" his companion replied.

He leapt at the warthog, strength coursing through him, smashing down on the front of it, denting it heavily and sending the two men inside flying from the vehicle.

Grif got up, complaining "Why does that fucking jeep get wrecked every time we drive it?"

Grif was quickly on the ground again as his attacker delivered a powerful kick to his chest which sent him flying into the air, where he somehow landed on his balls on the wall of his base. Simmons raised a battle rifle and shot at the green soldier, who avoided the shots, grinning beneath his helmet as he charged his enemy.

He grabbed Simmons by the arm, spun around several times, Simmons being lifted by the arm into the air as he did so, before sending him flying straight into Grif, the pair collapsing on top of the base. Satisfied that his foes were incapacitated, the green armored fighter turned to see Sarge rushing at him, shotgun aimed, preparing to fire.

Avoiding a blast, he did a jumping spin kick that knocked Sarge off his feet, and crashed his head against a rock. Looking around, and not seeing the other two and not seeing Sarge moving, he turned and began to walk towards the Pelican. He quickly stopped in his tracks as a gunshot hit the ground right in front of his feet.

Turning, he was greeted by the site of three new soldiers, one in mark V armor and carrying a standard assault rifle, one in teal armor holding an energy sword, and one in cobalt armor with a yellow trim who was pointing a battle rifle at his head.

He turned at the sound of movement to see the Reds behind him, weapons trained on him. He sighed and slowly placed his rifle on the ground, dropping to his knees and putting his hands behind his head "Iota, deactivate enhancement" he muttered.

The cobalt armored soldier approached him slowly "Alright, who are you?"

He froze, he knew that voice.

"Wash?" he asked. "Wash, is that you?"

Washington stopped. "How do you know my name?"

He chuckled "Really David, has it been that long where you don't recognize me? I'm hurt"

"Penn?"

"Bingo"

"B-but you're dead"

"Clearly not."

Washington looked up at the other soldiers. "Lower your weapons, I know this man. Everybody, this is agent Pennsylvania."