A/N: Hey guys, I am here with the (hopefully) awesome fight between Captain Schwann/New Jersey and Wash and Massa. Now, the main reason why my art director (who has designed all of the OCs, including Missouri) hates me and my editor is due to New Jersey's weapons. I did get a request to do another ReachxTexas lemon but make Reach more dominant, and I can say that's concrete for the future. Look for it in Chapter 40 or so, and that's all I can say for it now.

*Chapter 32*

New Jersey ran forward, his two SMGs blazing. Massa rolled out of the way, firing her rifle. 'Why? Why did it have to be you? Of all the Freelancers…why did it have to be the person who I know I cannot hope to defeat?' "Why are you doing this!? Do you intend to die here!?"

The black/blue Freelancer flipped, the two sniper rounds missing. "I always believe I'll die. That's why I fight with everything I've got!" Washington growled and fired his Battle Rifle, a series of three rounds bursts streaking towards their target. "You bastard! I'm not letting you get away with this!"

The experienced Captain spun, reloading his SMGs. "Then fight with all your heart! That is the mark of true soldier!" He fired his dual weapons again, and a trio of bullets striking Massa in the leg. The blue/white Freelancer fell to her knees, and she bit her lip to prevent from crying out in pain. 'He's too strong! Even if we could land a blow…'

"Dammit!" Washington hissed, crouching and firing. A bullet impacted on Jersey's right lower arm, sparking. However, it had no effect on his arms, and he returned fire with a series of controlled bursts from his SMGs before they clicked empty and he had to reload. "Good! Show me you are worthy of being a Freelancer!"

He slid a pair of clips into his weapons, and he sprayed the two with sustained fire. Massa got to her feet, and she placed a shield around them, protecting them and slowly removing the sting from her wounded leg. "A-aim for his hands!" 'Our bullets can't stop his arms, but he can't shoot without a gun.'

The shield started to turn red from the gunfire, and eventually, it died away. Massa drew her DMR and fired, destroying one of the black/blue Freelancers SMGs. New Jersey discarded the ruined weapon, continuing to shoot with his remaining one.

A series of bullets mowed Washington's Battle Rifle in half, and the black/gold Freelancer hissed in annoyance as he threw the ruined weapon away. "You asshole!" He picked his Magnum from his waist, firing at the Captain.

Massa tried to fire her DMR again when New Jersey fired at her, a bullet lodging itself in the barrel and jamming it permanently. 'Dammit! I can't shoot without it exploding and killing me!' She slid the damaged weapon to the side, picking up her Sniper Rifle and firing. The high velocity round shot the remaining SMG from her former mentor's hand, rendering him defenseless. Or so it seemed.

The Captain drew a Magnum from his back and fired a series of rounds. Massa and Washington ducked, trying to get closer to disarm him. "Shit! Those aren't normal 12.7 rounds!" 'That looks like it has been customized to fit .50 caliber bullets! One hit and we're dead!' "They're .50s!"

"Great! That's just what we needed!" Washington growled, rolling to take cover behind a pillar. Bullets impacted on the sandstone, covering his armor in dust. Massa crouched down, taking a deep breath and firing her Sniper Rifle. A round cracked through the air, and Jersey hid behind a pillar on the opposite side of the chamber, reloading. The bullet hit the sandstone and got stuck, not reaching its target.

Washington growled as his pistol clicked empty, and he punched the pillar he was hiding behind before sliding in a new clip. "I'm nearly out of ammo!" Massa checked her rifle, only to find she had two bullets left for it. "Dammit, me too!" 'We're fucked. We can't win…not like this. If we were in hand-to-hand, we might have a chance. But at the rate this is going…'

Eventually, New Jersey stopped firing, as he was now out of ammunition. "A soldier doesn't rely on just firearms to fight. They must also be skilled to handle their own!" He flexed his arms upwards, and Massa's eyes widened as two objects, hidden in the robotic components of his arms, flew into the air. They were long rods, and the experienced Captain caught them before spinning them. "What the fuck is going on here!?"

"Don't ask me!" Washington returned, jumping back as one of them narrowly missed his stomach. "But one thing's for sure; I do not want to be hit by that." Massa tried to aim her Sniper Rifle when one of the rods made contact with the long range weapon, and a powerful electric jolt shocked her, forcing her to drop the rifle. "They're stun rods!" 'That fucking hurt…New Jersey was always known for being for bringing the full kit on a mission.'

New Jersey spun them skillfully in his hands, striking Washington several times in the stomach. He grunted in pain, and the Captain placed the weapons back in his arms before delivering a powerful uppercut to Washington's jaw, sending him upwards. New Jersey cocked his right fist back and landed a devastating blow to his chest. The black/gold Freelancer crashed through a sandstone pillar before landing in a heap, beaten and out of the fight.

"Wash!" Massa cried out, kicking out with her leg. The black/blue Freelancer blocked the strike with his right arm before lashing out with his left, catching her in the face and cracking her visor. Her lips impacted on the inside of her helmet, and Massa felt the blood dripping from her mouth. There were crimson smears on her cracked visor, and she hated the salty yet metallic tang in her mouth. 'Wash…please don't be dead…'

The Captain drew a knife from his shoulder and twirled it before catching it, the blade pointed backwards. "So, it's down to me and you. Show me what you're now capable of, Mariah." Massa felt her eyes water as she drew her own knife, ready to fight. "I will." 'New Jersey…is this it?'

The two Freelancers circled each other like lions, each waiting for the other to attack first. New Jersey then leapt, and Massa braced herself as she blocked his knife with her own, her other hand blocking his wrist. "N-new Jersey…"

New Jersey's green eyes bored into hers, and there was a certain fire in them that the brunette hadn't seen in years. "Don't let yourself become distracted." He leaned back, and Massa stumbled forward. Jersey swung his leg, and pain exploded in Massa's side as his boot made contact with her ribs, breaking them. She cried out, holding her side and coughing more blood onto her visor.

"Is that all you have? I doubt it," New Jersey whispered. He swung his fist down when Massa kicked out in desperation. Her leg caught the Captain's jaw, and he stumbled backwards, wiping the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. "Good. Do me the honor of fighting with everything you have."

Massa spun, the grip on her knife tightening. 'New Jersey…' The blade met the black/blue Freelancer's, and the two struggled to push. Massa's eyes were slowly beginning to leak as she grabbed his hand, throwing him to the side and slicing. Her knife cut through New Jersey's left eye, and he felt it gingerly. Blood was trickling down, and the eye sparked. Like his arms and leg, it was robotic, having been surgically replaced. "I was right…you've become exactly what I've always wanted you to be, Mariah."

He lunged forward when Massa heard a loud gunshot, and New Jersey gasped before slumping to the sandy floor, blood trickling from a wound in his chest. 'What the hell!?' Massa turned to see Washington, slumped against the remains of the shattered pillar with his Magnum in hand, the barrel still smoking. "Wash!?" 'I didn't want to kill him! I just wanted to do this without dying!'

New Jersey got to his knees, laughing bitterly. "You have no idea how long I've been waiting for a shot like that to kill me." Massa crouched down, and her eyes watered as she saw it. Her mentor, Agent New Jersey, had a robotic heart instead of a normal one. "N-new Jersey!" 'Why!? Why would you keep that a secret!? Why!?'

"The original was lost over a decade ago, during the Covenant War," the black/blue Freelancer panted, feeling his chest. The heart sparked, and he grimaced. "But the Director saw fit to give me my life back." He coughed, blood splattering onto his hand. "Maybe now…I can finally die in peace."

Massa removed her helmet, her green eyes threatening to burst as she grabbed her mentor's shoulders. "Who said you can just sit here and die, dammit!? You're going to give up!?" New Jersey coughed again, looking up at her and meeting her gaze. "Mariah, you can be a real downer, you know that?"

The blue/white Freelancer shook her head furiously, and she tried to grab his hand when the temple shook, and bits of the roof started to cave in. "What the hell is going on!?" The Captain struggled to his feet, wiping blood from his mouth. "Yeager. He intends to bury you alive. Now that he has Epsilon, he plans on giving him to the Meta. You're nothing more than a nuisance to him, now."

Washington got to his feet, limping and holding his chest and her helmet "Come; we have to get out of here! The damn roof's going to collapse!" Massa and Washington ran towards the exit when it caved it, tons of sandstone now blocking the only way out. "Dammit! We're trapped!"

"No, you're not," New Jersey whispered quietly. He cocked his fists back and struck the sandstone blocks, breaking them. From the top of the temple, a few dozen Elites entered, roaring furiously. They were on the ledges on the opposite side, and New Jersey picked up his remaining SMG and Magnum and pushed the two out, pulling extra hidden clips from the inside of his arms. "Go on. Stop him…before it's too late. It's my destiny to die here."

Massa and Washington ran despite their physical pain, the temple collapsing behind them, and they just made it out in time before it completely fell, trapping the man inside. They could hear the sounds of gunfire and plasma fire until it abruptly stopped. "New Jersey!" For the first time in years, she cried, her head hanging. "He gave his life to save us." 'Why did you do it?!' She felt a hand on her shoulder, and she looked to meet Washington's grey eyes, filled with sympathy. "He was a brave man. I wish I could've met him earlier. At least it was on his own terms."

Massa nodded, and she wiped her eyes, her hand tightening in anger and sadness. Yeager had cost her someone dear to her heart, and she looked at the collapsed temple. "I'm going to make a promise to you, New Jersey. Yeager will pay for what he did. I won't break this vow." 'So will the Director. But, Yeager is MY target.'

The group of ODSTs that were inside earlier ran up to them, panting. "Where's Captain Schwann?" Massa teared up again, and she looked at the remains of the temple, fighting back the urge to let everything out. "He's…he's gone…" 'You were so much more to me than just a mentor. You were my father figure, someone who I wanted to become. But now, thanks to Yeager…you're gone.'

The ODSTs gasped, and one with a pair of blue shoulders pushed himself to the front of the ranks. "What do you mean, gone?" Massa's eyes burst again, and she faced him furiously, tears streaking down her cheeks. "The reason we're alive is thanks to your Captain! He gave his life so we could get out!"

The ODST was silent, and he removed his helmet. "I see…it's only fitting we give him the proper honors. Delta Team, present arms!" The squadron looked at each other, and one of them stepped forward. "I'm sorry sir, but we've lost Rachel and Eric. We need two more."

"Let us do it," Washington requested softly, picking up a new Battle Rifle. "Please." The ODST leader nodded, and Massa wiped her eyes again before picking up another rifle, completing the seven people required. "Present arms!" The squadron fired three times, giving the fallen Freelancer a twenty-one gun salute. 'Goodbye, New Jersey.'

Massa lowered the weapon, and the ODSTs fell out to board their ship and fly away. "Change of mission. The Meta is no longer our target. Our main priority is to find Yeager, and kill that son of a bitch." Her eyes were blazing with fury, and her breathing increased. Too much, it turned out, as several alarms blared throughout her suit. Her vision swam, and the last thing she knew was the feeling of the sand as she blacked out.

-0-

Washington caught Massachusetts, sighing. "I'm sorry…" 'Even if I hadn't shot him, New Jersey would've still died. But…I still feel guilty about it.' With the blue/white Freelancer unconscious, Washington pulled the small pendant around his neck, clutching it. "Jennifer…" 'My true love…I haven't forgotten you. I've kept my promise to you for over ten long, painful years. No one alive knows who you are. Not my friends within Project Freelancer. And now that the men I considered brothers are dead, no one knows you.'

He placed it back down, hiding it in his armor. His hatred of the Covenant, more specifically the Elites, came because of his lost love Jennifer. She was killed when the Covenant glassed New Alexandria, slaughtered by an Elite General with an Energy Sword. Her death infuriated the black/gold Freelancer, who was only 16 at the time of the attacks and was now 26. 'Would you be happy with who I've become? Or do you still see me as too brash and loudmouthed?'

Washington laughed bitterly, shaking his head. "Heh…you'd say that I haven't changed at all. It's just my situation that's changed." He winced as he placed Massa over his shoulders, his chest throbbing painfully. "You know, you're nowhere near as light as you look." 'So glad she's out…she'd probably kick my ass for saying that. And my damn chest hurts like hell.'

He placed her in the Pelican's passenger seats, and he tried to get in touch with the Chairman to alert him of what happened with Epsilon. "Chairman, it's Recovery One. We have a—"

"Thank you for reaching the voicemail system," a robotic female voice spoke. "Please wait until you hear the beep and record your message." Washington rolled his eyes, sighing. "I know how to leave a goddamn message. Just hurry the fuck up. This shit is too important."

"When you have finished recording, hang up or press # for more options." The black/gold Freelancer resisted his urge to face-palm, and he let out a sigh as he got in the pilot's seat of the Pelican. "Hang up; no shit. I was just going to sit here like a retard and talk to your annoying ass until he decides to check his fucking voicemail." 'I hate voicemails. No one fucking has one these days for a goddamn reason.'

"If you wish to leave a callback number, press 5. To hear these options in Spanish, press 7." Washington slammed his fist into the Pelican's controls, his grey eyes narrowed into slits from pure frustration. "I will fucking stab you, you goddamn computer phone bitch."

"To replay this message, please press 9. To mark this message as urgent, press 11." Washington growled in fury, and he threw his helmet against the windscreen. "There is no eleven, you fucking whore!" He picked up his helmet, putting back on with a bit more force than originally intended, and decided to give up with attempting to get in touch with the Chairman for the time being. "Fuck this shit." 'I'll just fly us back to camp and try to find some damn painkillers. Massachusetts can handle her own wounds.'

It wasn't that he didn't want to help his current partner. He just didn't want to make it awkward by fishing around in the leg of a woman who he didn't know much about. 'What if she wakes up and I'm still trying to get the damn bullet out? I'd get my head kicked in and maybe shot for being a leg-fetish pervert. And that would probably only be the very start of a long, painful, agonizing death.' "Dammit…why the hell did you have to get shot in the leg? Seriously…"

He grimaced as he pulled on the Pelican's controls, the ship lifting up from the ground. "And as for our sudden change of mission…I agree. Yeager will lead us to the Meta. We just have to find out where the hell the asshole is. Then, we can have a little fun killing two birds with one stone, as it were." 'If only we knew where the hell Yeager's ship is… we could track him, get the Meta, bang out, and prove the damn Chairman we didn't have anything to do with the Director's experiments.'

Washington carefully flew the ship over to their makeshift camp, and he landed much closer than Massachusetts had originally. 'We haven't even been here a damn week, and I'm already tired of it. I hate deserts with a damn passion. This place is worse than our mission in the Arctic Ocean on Earth a few years ago.' "Next time someone ever suggests to me that I should go off into the middle of a fucking desert to try and look for an AI, I'm going to tell them to go fuck themselves."

He stepped out of the Pelican, grabbed Massachusetts out, and carried her towards her tent. "Sleep it off…you've had a rough day, kiddo." 'I know I never met the guy…but I could see just how much New Jersey meant to you. Yeager, you fucking asshole. If Massachusetts doesn't shoot you, then I will. You're not going to be getting away with this.'

The black/gold Freelancer walked to his own tent, and began to search for some serious painkillers to ease his physical pain. "Come on, where the hell are you?" 'I know I put them in here somewhere…' He found the bottle, popped out three pills, and swallowed them. "That's better." 'I seriously with North was here. You optimistic bastard…you always kept us seeing the light at the end of the tunnel during missions, even when our odds were negative.'

Washington left his tent, and he took up a position next to the oasis, rifle in hand. 'Back on watch…fuck it. I'm tired of just bitching about everything. I'll suck it up and quit complaining.'

'For you, Jen, if no one else...'

A/N: Eight more chapters left...and Wash will be betrayed. It's sad to know that, especially since Massa's in a shitty spot herself. When it does happen…ah fuck it. We'll cross that bridge when we arrive at it, right? As for the phone bitch joke…well, it had to happen sooner or later, right? XD