Backstory to this: I'm normally an anime fan, but I'd caught up with my own anime list, and came upon Red vs Blue, and…watched 15 seasons in the course of a week and a half and now I've been reading fan fiction for it. A few of them I really, really liked hadn't been updated in like, forever!

So, I sorta, kinda…asked to finish some of them. Only one answered giving me the okay, turns out, I've asked for something from him before (Which is kinda why I asked)! BIG Z1776, same guy I borrowed my Girls und Panzer story premise from. I loved LRvBS, and two, but he hadn't updated the sequel, saying it was up for adoption, but I asked to adopt it, he said yes (After proof-reading the first chapters of course), apparently his first story series means a lot to him, and who can blame him right?

So anyway, he always wanted to have a "Their Kids" type of story, apparently he was intending on wrapping up LRvBS II within a few chapters of where it ended up so he could work on it. But, life I guess right? Well, he gave me his blessing, and said he'd be reading it, so BIG Z, here's the story life got in the way of, hope it ends up being everything you hoped for!

But…I like Carolina/York, so…I'm saying AU where they arrive and are reunited, assigned by the UNSC, and added them to the crew, anyone have any objections? No? Good. YORKALINA FOREVER!

This takes place around the same time period plot-wise as when the Red and Blues would have arrived at Chorus in the actual show, so there's a lot of weapons and vehicles and armor that exist that didn't when BIG Z was writing this story.

So, now for the first chapter, which is gonna have a lot of text introducing the new generation of Reds and Blues.

CHAPTER I

Agriculture Satellite Plentiful/Red and Blue Base

It was paintball day, and everyone knew what that meant, Red versus Blue. For the last sixteen years the Reds and Blues had mostly grown out of it. But their kids on the other hand, were only just getting started. Things had changed over the years, their terms of service had long since expired with the UNSC regular forces, and now they were in their last two years in the reserves. Their agriculture satellite had been given to the Reds and Blues the UNSC decided to just keep it for themselves rather than let it be decommissioned and sold for scrap. It was effectively home, and with as large as the UNSC was they sorta forgot about them and their satellite.

But someone hadn't forgot about them, a year after they'd arrived here at Pluvia Silva a pair of familiar faces that everyone thought were dead had shown up. Carolina and York, with Carolina pregnant with a baby boy. With just about every other of the girls pregnant or nursing things weren't exactly stable for a long while, especially seeing as Tex was expecting too, and had the hormone imbalance to match. While there wasn't a pregnancy brawl, there were some tense months between the two former Freelancer top agents with Hawaii, York, and Wash being the only ones brave enough to step between the two women.

Then, the babies started being born, and the baby blues for the new mothers were horrible. Fear of bodily harm kept the fathers from attempting to escape into Grif and Liz's secret hang-out. When Sarge and the Reds tried to suggest reprograming Lopez into a nurse in an attempt to sleep more Carmen had pretty much threatened them into hiding in the warehouse for a week before Hawaii figured out how to salvage the situation. But it wasn't before Sarge had built a Red Base out of crates and boxes geared specifically to guard them from their wives' hormonal fury. Things hadn't gone much better when the second generation of four babies had been born. It proved to be a lot for their dog, Shotgun, who never had a shortage of kids to ask for treats and pets from. But it was a sad day when the old Red guard dog finally passed on, and only the adoption of a new Doberman puppy which Sarge promptly named Shotgun II, raised the spirit of the Red kids. But like his predecessor, Shotgun II became intensely adverse to the color orange and very fond of searching out someone to give him pets and treats, and the cycle continued.

Things weren't much better for the Blues. When Tex had gotten pregnant, thanks to the cloned bodies her and Church had been loaded into using the DNA of both real world individuals, things went from bad, to hell. Whether it was Tex's clone body or…just Tex, she went from a dangerous killer former super-agent to a pregnant, moody, unpredictable, and dangerous killer former super-agent with access to high-powered military weaponry. Rachel, who had been the last to have kids, had built the Blues' nursery out of a large company meeting room in the top floor. Washington hadn't been remiss in adhering to his fatherly protective instincts by installing their most hard-core security measures in that room. The last generation had been born only six years ago in the form of Caboose and Rachel's twins, a boy and a girl, and they were the last to have spent their early years there. Nowadays, the Blue nursery was the kids' game room, but it retained their security system.

Lastly, there were what the Red and Blue kids knew as the Neutrals. Seeing as Carolina had no intention of being involved in the Red and Blue rivalry, and York didn't want to end up on the opposite side of another Tex beatdown they set up with the pilots Vic and Four-Seven, and the medical personnel Doc and Dr. Courtney Anderson, who they just called Courtney. Lieutenant June Athens had earned herself a promotion and was now in charge of the security detachment at a major UNSC Navy nuclear arsenal on Pluvia Silva. Then, there was Maine, who was pretty much in charge of the Zealots, who were still sorta young, and were now assigned to the planet's major training grounds, and acted as the core of the OPFOR for whatever UNSC personnel were there going through maneuvers. Those neutrals who remained had all had kids, two of them, and raised them in the environment of being between the Reds and Blues, and of course they took after their parents.

Amongst the children of the local teams there were two different age groups, the older kids, and the younger siblings. Although some were only children, they developed a strong bond, which characteristically of the bonds of their parents, mimicked their elders with the relationship being somewhat…tense and sometimes downright confusing to outsiders. Amongst the older children the ages ranged from the oldest being Samuel, the son of Sarge and Carmen, at sixteen years and eight months old, to the youngest of their group being Oliver, son of Doc and Courtney at just barely fifteen.

Samuel was the leader of Red Team's kids. He had another sixteen-year-old in his team, Calvin, son of Simmons and Lisa, and two fifteen-year-olds, Lyndsey, daughter of Hawaii and Alaska (who was without doubt their best fighter), and Roland, Grif and Liz's son. It surprised no one that each child took after their parents, including their quirks, save for Lyndsey who was actually rather shy and quiet. The best way to describe them was dysfunctional and oblivious to reality, with Sam being as aggressive as his mother while maintaining the stubbornness and military regimen of his father. Calvin was quite bright, excelling in school, but heavily relied on the approval of Sam for morale and maintaining his station as the Reds' second-in-command, yet he still fell apart under pressure. Lyndsey was rather skilled and smart, often being the only member of Red Team who was willing to or capable of pulling the team through whatever antics Sam had managed to get them into. Roland was a bit of a bum, who routinely copied off of Calvin's homework and classwork, tricked him into doing his chores, and frankly wasn't too bright. And like Sarge and Grif, Sam and Roland tended to be on one another's nerves, with Sam sometimes concocting a scheme to get Roland either hit in their paintball matches or placed into some form of danger or humiliating position.

While these four were the core of the Red kids' play fighting capability they weren't the only members. There were four more members, the twelve and eleven year-old second string of Reds. While the older kids were three-to-one in boy to girl ratio, the younger generation was the exact opposite. The nearly-devoid-from-reality and eager-to-prove-herself Skyler was Sarge and Carmen's twelve-and-a-half-year-old daughter. She was the one who started the fights that dragged in the rest of the kids of both teams, and often dragged in her best friend Cleo, who was a month younger and was Simmons and Lisa's second child who did her best to keep Skyler out of trouble. Then there was Hugh, Roland's little brother by four years and was nearly twelve. He simply wanted to be like his brother and to not be Skyler's punching bag or meat shield, the latter of which proved to be nearly impossible. Then their last member, Dani, Kate and Donut's daughter, who wasn't so much a fighter as she was a good friend who merely wanted to be the life of the party and the bringer of all things happy and fun, and often forgot about the rivalry in between the teams and fawned over a few of the boys around her, despite the crush that Hugh had on her which he fought desperately to conceal from his own teammates and his brother. In fact, the only reason he tagged along and let himself go through what he went through was because he wanted to impress Dani.

The group of eight was currently on its way to their own 'kids' armory' where they had lockers for their own Red Team armor and their own paintball guns and red expanding paintballs. Two of them, Roland and Calvin, were on their way separately having been playing video games when Calvin got the call.

"Dammit…" Roland grumbled as he walked alongside his best friend wearing his dark grey hoodie and jeans and flip-flops.

"What's your problem?" Calvin sighed as they got to the door of the medium-sized room, and leaned against it, waiting for Sam who had the key.

"You know how this is going to end right? Same as usual? We attack, the Blues shoot at us, we shoot at them, no one hits the other, and we spend two hours yelling at each other while Lyndsey fights Ford and James while also everyone is fighting Jayden, and we still just yell at the rest of the Blues."

"What's wrong with that?"

"You didn't let me finish," Roland said quickly.

"Fine," Calvin sighed.

"But while we're yelling, our siblings will be going and getting themselves into some other kind of trouble, that we end up having to find a way to save them, we don't, and I always, always end up getting used as the bait, or a meat shield, or a…" he trailed off, trying to think of another excuse.

"A…what?"

"Huh, sorry, I didn't feel like making another excuse because fuck it, why do I care?"

"Yeah sure," Calvin rolled his eyes behind his glasses.

"Calvin, Roland!" Sam called out as he came over wearing his own usual tight red long-sleeved shirt, khaki cargo pants, and black boots.

Sam was the tallest of the three at six foot one, and had his brunette hair cut in a sort of undercut spiked up towards the middle. He was also the strongest and fittest of the group, being a member of their high school's football team as an inside linebacker (although he was only a JV second-stringer and didn't play very often). Still, he was quite handsome, inheriting his mother's eyes and father's sturdy facial features.

Calvin had black hair, with it usually slicked back and wore some pretty nice glasses which had a direct link to his phone and had bluetooth headphones mounted inside the glasses and could control the phone with his eye movement. He was thin and tall, not as tall as Sam, but decently tall at six foot. But he was a twig, and was a mathlete and a debate team member, so his strength wasn't in physical strength, but he was the guy to go to when there was a need for anything having to do with computers or something of the sort.

Roland had his dark brunette hair longer than the others, and had it tied behind his head in a short tie, not a ponytail, like Sam liked to call it, but it wasn't loose and bouncing, tied together. He was a bit heavier than the others, more stocky than tubby, and avoided having to do extra, aside from his choice of a cooking class which turned out to require him to contribute to the competitions that the school participated in as a requirement. Roland was without doubt the weak link amongst the three. But he was at least reliable in the fact he'd never abandon his friends, despite his issues with authority and work.

"Hey Sam," Calvin said as the oldest of the kids aboard the satellite walked over with the key to their locker room.

"Hey," Roland lifted his chin to the older Red.

"What's with you being here early for a change?" Sam asked suspiciously, "You're not changing your ways are you?"

"No, I dragged him along, as requested boss," Calvin said proudly.

"Kissass," Roland rolled his eyes as Sam raised the keycard to the scanner and it blinked green and the door opened causing the lights to flick on automatically.

Their locker room was actually pretty nice, with a red, white, and gray tile pattern carpet with wooden lockers big enough to sit inside of even with their armor on. Each armor suit the Red and Blue kids had was patterned in the old ODST style, but they had some advantages that normal reproductions of the suits didn't, namely, the ones that the third generation Project Freelancer Simulation Troopers wore. Because these armored suits were made from the recovered equipment stolen by the arms dealers that they'd busted more than a decade ago. That actually made their armor compatible with AI, and possessed the armor lock ability thanks to the hard work of both Lopez and Rachel as well as the Freelancers, Simmons, and Sarge. It was a very safe suit of armor that they wore, but the look of them wasn't quite what the old Sim-Troopers had been wearing, instead, the kids had opted to go with a look that was "cooler" and so their armor was recast into the forms it all took nowadays by being in the ODST style in terms of its aesthetics.

Inside each locker they had their helmet which had a golden vizor like their parents' helmets. Then they had a pair of shoulder pads, elbow pads, and forearm pads, a chest plate, which was painted their color of choice with their name written on the top of the plate and RED ARMY written on the bottom of the plate. And inside the chest plate storage compartment they could put any number of things, like the real thing. They also had the armor pieces that connected to the chest plate and went around their waists and over their collarbones to connect to a plate on their back. Then they had the belt and the ammunition pouches that went onto it, the three leg pieces per leg for the thigh, the knee, and the shin. Under it they had a two-piece interlocking and sealing black under-armor suit which wasn't as tight-looking as the one their parents had, but it retained the armor-lock function when ordered to, was more comfortable, and it had a pair of identical sealing gloves. It was rated for zero-atmosphere, but no one dared test it themselves, they used a dummy, and it worked, but zero-atmosphere was nothing to mess with so they hadn't tested on a live subject, despite Sam's suggestion to use Roland. Still, they were every bit as physically tough and advanced as the armor their parents wore, although they lacked some of the really expensive combat-oriented upgrades of the Freelancer armor.

The three boys began getting their sealing suits on in the bathroom changing stalls, seeing as they didn't have a boys-only and girls-only locker room. They mimicked their parents' choices of armor color, with Sam being all-red, Calvin maroon, and Roland orange. There was another large suit of armor here, which had been cut to more of a lady's size and proportions. It was colored white mostly, but had a red stripe on the helmet and on the center of the chest plate, and a stripe down the middle of the two shoulder pads which were smaller and fit closer to the arm. The name on this armor said 'Lyndsey', she was the daughter of the two Freelancers Hawaii and Alaska.

"You guys seen Lyndsey?" Roland asked as he sat down at his locker's built-in bench and started lacing up his boots.

"I saw her as I was leaving my room, she said she needed to put away some laundry," Sam said as he did likewise and began latching his shin pads on tight after his boots were tied under them.

"Any idea when she'll be done?" Roland asked again.

"Why are you so curious?" Sam looked over after asking that.

"No reason," Roland quickly averted his gaze by down to his boots.

Across from this row of four lockers was another row of four, this one had four other suits, all smaller than theirs and all but one of them was cut in a similar style to Lyndsey's. There was a red one, a maroon one, an orange one (this one being the only boy), and a pink one. The red was, predictably, Sam's twelve year-old sister, Skyler. The maroon girl's armor belonged to Cleo, Calvin's twelve year-old sister. The orange boy's armor had the name 'Hugh' written on it. He was Roland's little brother and was almost twelve with only another month until his birthday. Then there was the pink armor, this belonged to one of the two only-children amongst the Reds, Dani, the only child of Donut and Kate. These four had a similar sort of friendship going on that their parents did, although Dani hadn't quite acquired Donut's unique penchant for wording things.

But Skyler, Cleo, and Hugh were near identical copies of their older siblings, and strove to be like them, and in Skyler's case, she took things to the extreme, and that was where bad situations usually started. Amongst others, Skyler had: Burned down one of their middle school's science labs, built a robot go-cart that kidnapped her and drove her around the satellite at top speed until its batteries died, started a stampede of cattle through the upper decks of Blue Team's territory, got herself stuck on the sprinkler system on the glass dome trying to rescue an RC helicopter, and most annoying of all, she'd stolen all of Blue Team's TV remotes and video game controllers and used a supped-up universal remote to turn on all the TV's in Blue Base at horrific hours and when she was caught it turned out she forgot where she hid them. There was a reason Skyler wasn't allowed anywhere near the explosives, who knew what she'd manage with even so much as a grenade.

"Hey guys," Lyndsey's voice finally came through as the three boys were getting their armor's leg sections buckled on, "Sorry I'm late, my dad had Kate have me model some new dresses for her," she informed them, motioning to the pink and white Hawaiian flower dress that was quite bright and flowed easily with each movement, "Didn't really have time to change."

"Looks great…" Calvin sighed softly as both he and Roland watched her walk into the changing room after taking off her tennis shoes.

"Yeah…" Roland said and the two watched her disappear into the changing room.

"Ew…" a new voice, this time, belonging Cleo, piped up as she, Skyler, Dani, and then Hugh all stood in the doorway.

"Yeah, like you guys have a chance with Lyndsey," Skyler giggled as they walked in.

"Hey!" both the older boys countered, rather offended.

"It's true," Cleo added, wanting to show she was agreeing with her friend.

"Hey bro," Hugh said as he followed in Dani who was dancing her way forward listening to one of her many, many playlists of assorted boybands.

Calvin's sister had black hair tied in a plait braid going down her back and also had a pair of glasses, the same sort of advanced type as her brother's but in the girl's preferred fashion. She was taller than her friend at five feet tall on the dot, but like her brother she was a scrawny bookworm. Skyler was the shortest of the four-kid group, at four-foot-four despite being the oldest. Her light brunette hair was in an asymmetrical pixie cut with the longest portion of it being just below her chin. She had a little scar on her chin from her bad run-in with her robot go-cart which was just ever-so-slightly faded. Hugh was pretty much a little version of his big brother, same hair color but it was just long and rather shaggy. He was actually pretty normal in his body-type, thanks to his high metabolism. Dani was a pretty girl, with long wavy blonde hair and usually had her headphones on and was listening to music or singing herself while wearing a stylish one-strap pink shirt and a white skirt and white slipper shoes. She was sort of oblivious like that, and often got herself and her friends into trouble in their paintball matches with her switching her noise-canceling headphones for the one in her helmet which drowned out everything else unless she was forced to stop.

"What took you guys so long?" Calvin asked as he sat up, curious as to what took the four younger Reds so long to get to the locker room, usually Skyler was the first one here.

"We had to wait for Dani, apparently she was helping model new clothes too," Skyler pointed a thumb over her shoulder at her friend who was still just jamming to her song, eyes closed and oblivious to what was going on around her.

"Yeah but she always does that," Roland asked.

"But Lyndsey showed up and Donut and Kate went a little nuts and we had to wait," Cleo sighed, remembering the poor teen who'd only been there to drop off some sketches for her dad and then she'd been effectively shanghaied into Donut and Kate's studio where they designed clothes and other wearables for sale online and did a decent job of it.

Unfortunately, Lyndsey was the only older teen here who they could use as a model on a regular basis, although Emma, the hyper and bubbly daughter of Sister and Sergey was a little older and was all-too-willing, but Blues weren't all that welcome around here.

"Nah, it's alright, no worries," Lyndsey smiled as she came back out with her undersuit on and the other kids went into the changing room with their own undersuits in hand with their shoes now stowed inside their lockers, "So, anything new today?"

"Yep, I have a plan!" Sam said back, excited at what he'd been concocting all day, "It's the perfect way to kick off summer vacation with a win."

"Oh boy, can't wait to hear about this one," Roland grumbled as he and Calvin continued getting their armor on.

"Now, first off, we'll take our main force, us three, along the maintenance hallways under the garden itself," Sam began, "And with the assistance of a new weapon, we will secure victory."

"That's it?" Roland cocked an eyebrow.

"What new weapon are you talking about this time Sam?" Calvin said curiously.

"Excellent question, I've hidden it at the entrance to the maintenance hatch by Blue Base, you see I've been moving pieces for it into place piecemeal all week, and we'll finally be using it."

"Oh God what have you built this time?" Roland groaned as he stopped, knowing this plan was not going to work out very well at all.

"It's a surprise," Sam wagged a finger, pausing his armor-donning to smile cockily.

"Can you tell us and then we can act surprised later?" Calvin offered.

"No…it just wouldn't be the same," Sam said as he buckled in his last piece of armor and stood up, grabbing the bandolier which held his shotgun rounds. He was the only one on Red Team who carried a shotgun, this one a real M45D Tactical Shotgun with a special barrel for firing their red paintball rounds. His sister wanted to, but she wasn't big enough to handle it, and so she, and all the other younger kids, were forced to carry an M7 SMG. All the other Reds carried BR85HB Battle Rifles, and everyone carried and M6H Magnum pistol in an actual magnetic holster like their parents.

It didn't take long before everyone was finished with putting on their and slipped on their helmets. With that done they went to their lockers' thumbprint scanner and unlocked their weapons and began drawing ammunition, Sam being extra sure that Roland carried the extra grenades in his backpack, he had special plans for them. With this done they left the locker room and walked with weapons unloaded towards their own base, which was on a flat open area down the hill from where they and their families all lived, semi-apartment-style, with each family unit having its own section of bedrooms, living rooms, and bathrooms separate from the large central common rec room, the big game room, the meeting room, the kitchen, which was big enough for everyone to use for their own meals as they saw fit.

As they walked into the Reds' garage they saw the Reds' considerable armada of vehicles, which included three Scorpion Main Battle Tanks, one of which was Monty, their Smart Tank, who was talking to Lopez, as well as a dozen assorted Warthogs and many Mongoose ATV's. Theses were parked separately, but they had another dozen civilian cars, each owned by their parents who sometimes loaded them into the Albatross dropships in the hangar and ferried down to the planet when they were out of the satellite. It was a pretty good setup for growing up in, that was for certain. But as they walked up the stairs they saw the doors opening, and out stepped Sarge, holding a box of parts which had just arrived.

"Hey ya son, just on my way to replace some of the old rusted oily bits on Lopez with new oily bits," Sarge declared proudly.

"What do you mean rusted? Lopez the Heavy does not rust," Lopez shot back.

"You're right Lopez it is overdue," Skyler said, falsely-knowingly.

"Indeed it is, come on Lopez, I've got a new set jingly bits for ya and a new replacement," Sarge called over to Lopez.

"What?" Roland asked, shocked at what he just heard.

"What?" Sarge replied, realizing he said that last bit out loud.

"Why is it that you had the time and money to have kids but you didn't bother to either learn Spanish or have me speak English?"

"Are you surprised anymore mate?" Monty turned his barrel towards Lopez, offering his sympathy.

"I guess not," Lopez put his hands on his hips.

"Alright Lopez, time to open ya up," Sarge went walking over carrying his new parts in a hovering cart in a few large wooden boxes.

"Have fun dad," Sam said as he and the others walked past the tank and the robot as they went over to Sarge to begin working on things.

"I sure will," Sarge said as he waved to the kids, "By the way, go Red Team!"

"Yeah! Go Red Team!" Skyler whooped loudly as they got to the door next to the garage door into the large open garden.

"Yeah, go Red Team!" Sarge yelled back proudly.

"They're going to lose again aren't they?" Lopez shook his head, having a fairly good understanding of how the Red kids operated.

"Nah they'll be fine, no worries mate," Monty brushed off the doubt Lopez exhibited.

"And remember, helping your friends is always a good thing, but only when asked. Just be sure that when you're helping your friends you don't do it in a way that makes them angry," Caboose said slowly, trying to give his usual bout of advice to his six-year old twins, Emily and Logan, who were looking at him with bright eyes and big smiles, each having a gap in their front teeth where they'd each lost their baby teeth a Caboose-related tireswing incident.

Still, the youngest Blue children absolutely idolized their mom and dad. They watched cartoons all the time with Caboose, got to play with making neat toys with their mom, and learned, what Church called: "The Art of Team-Killing", usually directing their paintball guns, squirt guns, nerf guns, or anything really, at Church and Tex's sixteen year-old son James and twelve year-old daughter Chloe. More often than not both of these two would end a match with globs of blue paint stuck to their backs, usually thanks to Emily and/or Logan wanting to help their best friends. As a result, they usually kept the twins in front of them, or safely back at base where they would be out of sight and out of range, most of the time. It was a good thing that they learned how to not get shot by their teammates, because Ford and Chloe were the best fighters of their age group on Blue Team, after all, Tex taught them.

But they weren't the only Freelancer-trained kids, Washington and Jenny had a sixteen year-old son too. He was the smartass amongst the Blue crew, a handsome young man named Ford who was also in shop class with Sam from Red Team. He wasn't quite as skilled as James was, but he was no slouch, usually able to beat his Red competition one-on-one, although Sam was no pushover if he saw them first at close range. Amongst the Blues' older kids was the oldest, Paige, Tucker and Lea's daughter who was almost the same age as Sam. She was quite a firecracker, being a bit of feminist and a revolutionary, wanting to upend the status quo, especially when it came to how guys treated her. More than once growing up with Sam she'd gotten into fights with the Red boy back when he thought 'girls were icky'. She'd made a point of not being a cheerleader, a dancer, etc. She became a star softball player, and her school's up-and-coming star designated hitter. On the opposite side of the coin was Emma, Sister and Sergey's daughter who was the youngest at fifteen. This teen was a girly-girl, a cheerleader with bouncy blonde hair, a cheerful disposition, and was almost as dumb as a bag of rocks. It made for a slightly Jeckyll-and-Hyde type of team, with the two reasonably-competent boys, and the two polar opposite girls.

They also had two younger siblings. There was Liam, the aspiring playboy, Tucker and Lea's twelve year-old son. He drove his sister up the wall, and was constantly teasing his Red opponents, almost all of whom were girls. Oddly enough he had a crush on Chloe, and was always trying to impress her with one-liners borrowed from his dad or by his exploits in their paintball matches and in whatever sports were in season. He did this with his slightly-older friend, and Sister and Sergey's younger son, Thomas. The oldest of the younger Blues was a confident individual, who thought he should be the one running Blue Team as a whole, and really did not get along with Skyler of Red Team. The two butted heads all the time, even in class. Ever since Pre-K, they were always in the same class and were constantly getting into trouble for things like shooting spitballs at each other, flicking paper hornets at one another, or just generally making a nuisance of themselves to spite the other.

Agent Hawaii theorized the two were destined soul-mates, and would one day fall madly in love with the other. Now that the younger crop of kids was getting to that age where puberty was occurring in all but the Caboose twins it was time to see if he was right. So far the ones who were betting the two would become a couple were Hawaii, Alaska, Vic, Four-Seven, Doc, Donut, Kate, and York. There was actually money riding on this now, much to Sergey's dismay when he found his wife being the one keeping track of who her son might be crushing on.

"Hey Caboose, come on, we've gotta get going, I wanna make sure we got the best seats for the game," Tucker called down to Caboose from the balcony which overlooked the blueberry field and where the Blue kids were assembling and coming up with a plan, and where Caboose was giving his weekly pep talk.

"Okay!" Caboose said cheerfully, "I'll be right there," he then looked back down at his two children, "Now, you know what to do?"

"Help James and Chloe," the two twins said in concert, their honey-blonde hair, a bowl-cut for Logan, and short straight hair for Emily, bobbing as they said that with big smiles on as they clutched their miniature ODST helmets, colored blue like his own armor.

"Okay! Go have fun, go get those Reds," Caboose said, trying to pump everyone up as he waved goodbye as his twins put their helmets on.

Rachel walked up behind him, her new smart watch having a link to her neural implant so she could talk more understandably with his husband and kids.

"You made sure to tell them not to shoot their friends right?" the voice Rachel had picked out said from her watch's speaker.

"Yes, wait, you mean to tell them not to help them when they don't want help right?" Caboose straightened, trying to figure that out.

Rachel paused, trying to think of the right way to answer, "Sure."

"Come on Caboose, come on Rachel, playoffs are about to start," Jenny said from the open window where the Blue parents had created a fairly impressive adults' retreat.

"Coming!" Caboose called up.

The two walked up into the adults' room, which was effectively a sports bar, complete with an autochef to make chicken wings, burgers, and other bar foods with a few big TV's on the wall along with some bar seats, beer on tap, and scattered tables where they could enjoy some time away from their kids while they were studying, playing, hanging out, or just off doing kids stuff. It was sacred ground for them, and they loved it. Today, it was the first round of football playoffs, with the local tech school, also colored blue, being the chosen favorite of Blue Team, while the state school, a red-colored team, was Red Team's favorite. Both were powerhouses, and were probably destined for a game in the semi-finals.

"Hey guys," Rachel said through her watch as she and Caboose entered the room where the other parents were already present, with Washington actually at the bar, dishing out some glasses of a brew that Hawaii had been making, "Hawaii's special?"

"You bet," Washington nodded as he offered a cup to Rachel, "Traded some of mine for some of his," he replied, hinting at Washington's own hobby of microbrewing beer of his own, he preferred a darker drink, while Hawaii liked more of a diverse blend of different fruits in his.

"I still think it's weird that a dude like him makes fruity drinks," Church laughed as he took a drink from his own cup of some of Wash's latest batch, "Just kinda girly."

"And what's wrong with fruity drinks?" Jenny asked curiously, "What's so girly about them?"

"I mean y'know, come on, it's fruity drinks…" Church shrugged, getting a raised eyebrow in return, "Okay I don't have a good answer for ya, it's just man law okay?"

"Hey guys, playoffs are starting," Sergey told them as he turned up the volume on the biggest TV using the remote which was on the bar.

"Playoffs, why are we playing off? Are we going to play with the kids?!" Caboose said eagerly, "That sounds fun! Can we? Huh can we Church?"

"Play paintball with the kids? Why the fuck would we do that?" Church asked, "That's their thing, our thing is watching games while drinking a few beers and eating some buffalo wings. And not getting shot by stinging paintballs is not in that list of activities. Caboose, speaking of which, if I see my kids come back with their armor covered in Blue paintball gunk I'm gonna need to ask you put your kids on Red Team, to y'know, even the teams."

"Our oldest kids are kinda of age though aren't they…" Tex mumbled as she tapped her glass, considering this prospect with some actual thought.

"What do you mean?" Lea asked, "Us join them in paintball?"

"No, well, not really, if they want, they're probably old enough that they can probably come train with us, I mean they're better fighters than you lot were when I met you," Tex mentioned.

"Hey!" Jenny scoffed, but pouted after Tex looked at her knowingly, "Okay fine…fair point."

"With all the hijackings in the system I wouldn't mind passing on a few tips and tricks to the kids, if only for my own peace of mind for when we have to go planet-side next week," Washington mentioned, reminding them of one of their last military obligations, they were assigned as part-timers for the UNSC training grounds, and they would have to act as both OPFOR, for the Reds, and BLUFOR, for the Blues, alongside newly-arrived UNSC Army, Marine, and even the occasional Spartans or ODST's who were going through training. It kept them sharp, and it was the one way that they could keep the Red and Blue rivalry alive, even after all they'd been through.

"You think the UNSC would let us bring the kids?" Tucker laughed, "Oh yeah guys, look it's bring your kids to work day in the middle of the desert with tons of military hardware laying around, what a great damned combo that would be!"

"I mean we have our own training floor dumbass," Tex motioned to herself and Washington, the Freelancers had replicated their old training room from the Mother of Invention here on the satellite and it kept them as sharp as ever, even if things got really, really competitive from time to time.

"You think they'd go for it?" Sergey asked as he went over to the autochef and hit the button to order some wings, and saw the mechanical arms in the kitchen area in the adjacent room start going to work, "Or, you think they're even ready?"

"Well, we do have the security feed from the drones, we can record and go between the game and the paintball match and see if they're ready that way," Tex suggested, "Plus, these matches have gotten pretty entertaining the last few months."

"Okay, let's do it," Washington nodded.

"This'll be fun. Hey, maybe Skyler and Thomas will finally win me the bet," Sister then said eagerly.

"Yeah, wait what?"