Thanks, TheShadeOps, 5th Allen, and MasterDerp5885, for the reviews, hard to believe anybody is still with me on this actually. And to answer your question 5th Allen, of course I'm going to keep working on Namesake, waiting for RedDawnShadow to sort out some computer issues so she can help get us going. In other news: I torture Archer way too much in this story… And in others…. Lord only knows why… But it's always interesting so at least there's that going for it. Anyway, I'm pretty much going to B.S my way through the MW3 storyline since I've pretty much changed the whole game plan. Might jump around a few missions, might even check up on Frost once or twice but that one's a big maybe. So, on to the chapter, as it is 0230 (2:30 am for you civilian people…) as I am typing this note… this will definitely be interesting…

Thanks for Reading, Fly High Aim Higher

~Spitfire out

The more I thought about it, the more it didn't make any sense. Why the hell did I need 'authorization' to do something that would not just save a world class sniper but two. Honestly, this wouldn't be the first time I went against regulations. I knew for a fact Archer outranked Toad, they couldn't be together. Even if they were the same rank military couples were kept at least fifty miles apart when they were on duty. That one didn't make any more sense than me needing authorization, made less sense even. It was to keep them from being distracted by each other but by separating them they'd be even more distracted, worrying for each other and whatnot.

I had made up my mind though, I was going to do it; I couldn't just stand by and let Archer be discharged. Not only would that not be fair to him, but it would crush Toad, they'd have to cease all communication to keep each other safe. The two having been together since they were young, that wouldn't do either of them any good.

Of course, there was the issue of still having to tell Archer about his chances of walking. I had no doubt Toad would be all for having me do this. They'd risked life and limb for each other several times in the past. But telling Archer was the hard part, it's not exactly something that's 'easy' to talk about.

I needed to let my mind sort itself out, so I busied myself in my work. Of course, the new Russian guy, Yuri, chose that moment to walk in, his arm bleeding along with a cut above his eye.

I cast him a curious look and he shrugged, "Dogs," he said simply.

I rolled my eyes at the simple answer and gestured for him to follow me, questioning in my mind how he hadn't even been grazed by a bullet. Not that 'dogs' explained the cuts and scrapes…

*Frost* (Yep, I got stuck, so that makes Frost's POV a definite…)

The drive from where we were stationed to the stock exchange wasn't a long one but I hadn't been sleeping well, had too much on my mind, so I had fallen asleep easily in the back seat of the humvee. I was woken up what felt like only minutes later by Truck shouting something about an RPG, an explosion, and the sound of glass shattering and metal scraping, twisting, and snapping, then I was out again.

"Frost?! … Frost!" This time I woke up to Sandman calling my name.

Everything was in slow-motion for a few seconds before I caught up with myself but everything was still blurry and a haze. I could've sworn I felt something dripping down the side of my face… I looked up at him with what I knew would be an un-focused look as I was still trying to regain my senses…. Wait… Up? Sandman was above me, the humvee was on its side…

"Get switched on, we gotta move, now!" he ordered, cutting the seatbelt that was holding him in place.

If only I had been wearing mine… I grabbed my rifle and climbed to the door on stiff arms and legs that felt like lead. I carefully pushed the door open, watching as a few missiles struck a building not too far away and rubble fell into the street in front of us. I jumped down and onto the street, using the flipped humvee for cover as I checked to see if I had a mag in my rifle. Sandman had jumped down next to me and tossed me a mag before I could pull one of my own out. I nodded my thanks and clipped it into my rifle.

"We're 500 meters out! We'll leg it from here!" Sandman called over the gunfire and explosions, "Grinch, Truck, you up?"

"We're good!" Grinch called back as he shot at the Russians.

I ran forward, shooting back at the enemies, the adrenaline rush of the fight probably the only thing keeping me on my feet.

We fought our way to the main road where we intercepted some friendlies, Truck made a joke but I was too busy figuring out what the hell was dripping down my face. Not that I ever found out because of the goggles and half-mask that I wore. I kept running and shooting and diving for cover. Run, shoot, dive, run shoot, dive… repeat. Ah the life of a Delta operator… Then a chopper came down on us at the end of the street… Oh joy…

I ran into the lobby of some building to take cover from its guns. The others met me there as I found an ammo crate and restocked on clips for my M4A1. We fought our way to and through the stock market, quickly making it upstairs after clearing out the Russians. Sandman ordered me up the ladder to the roof as the rest of the guys covered me from any stragglers. As soon as I stepped onto the roof I was met by a wall of hot lead flying at me in the form of a guy with a shotgun… Fucking shotguns… I switched over to my XM25 grenade launcher and fired a round into the guy's chest.

"Boom, bitch," I muttered, running past, firing the other three rounds of the mag onto the platform above me to thin the Russians out.

Sandman, Grinch, and Truck soon joined me on the roof where I was shooting blindly at the Russians and helped me to kill them all. I ignored the dull thud in my head and shoulder, assuming it was just the adrenaline wearing off and the soreness from the crash, as I set the thermite charge. We all stood back from the jammer as I blew it and watched it fall in a show of sparks and fire.

I groaned inwardly as we started taking fire from across the way but that was remedied by the small beep in my headset that let me know the predator drone was online. I grinned to myself, probably looking like a madman if I hadn't been wearing my mask and goggles, and pulled the small portable laptop out and opened the screen, firing two missiles at the offending Russian troops… Only to hear the rotors of an enemy bird as I put the laptop away… just my luck… I pulled it out again and fired a third missile and steered it towards the helicopter, downing it easily.

"Copper down, nice shooting, Frost!" Sandman called as our ride swooped down, "Exfil's here, let's load up!"

I jumped onto the chopper and took up the mini-gun, because the way my day's been going, there was no doubt I'd need it… And of course, as the chopper started climbing, I was proved right as more enemies started shooting at me… from the roof top I had just cleared with a missile…. I fired at them as we pulled away, navigating the buildings, the pilot searching for the clearance to climb to a higher altitude. Then there were two choppers on us. I took them down no problem, but then a third showed up and when I finally had it going down, it crashed into our bird.

The chopper spun and tilted, throwing me from the bay. I was barely able to catch the mini-gun's mount before I fell. I held onto it with a death grip as the pilot tried to regain control of the helicopter and I eventually managed to pull myself up… after getting hit by a flaming barrel that had been sent flying by the other heli crashing and Sandman having to catch me and pull me back up.

I collapsed on the deck of the chopper, breathing heavily as my vision swam. If someone were to ask me where it hurt I'd have simply said 'every-fucking-where'. I struggled to get my helmet off and had an even harder time with the protective goggles but the half-mask was easy to slide down so that it hung around my neck like some odd scarf. I covered my eyes with my hands as everything started spinning now that the adrenaline was gone. I pulled my left hand away when I felt something wet and saw that there was a bit of blood on my fingertips. I touched the left side of my head, close to my hairline and sure enough, there was more blood. I heard myself groan as I just let my left arm rest lazily across my stomach, not bothering to do anything about it, I was too damn tired for that.

"Shit, Frost, you're hit!" Sandman said suddenly, kneeling beside me.

I looked up at him like he was crazy. Who was what now? He didn't seem to be worried about the scrape on my head, head injuries tended to bleed a lot, I wasn't worried about it either. I felt myself falling asleep as he folded his hands over my right shoulder, putting a lot of pressure on it.

"Don't you fall asleep, Frost! Stay awake!" he yelled, waking me up suddenly.

I sent him a glare. I was tired, I just wanted to take a freaking nap.

"Ah, let the poor bastard sleep, boss, he was up tossing and turning all night…" Grinch said simply, "Doesn't look like too bad a hit, at least it didn't hit anything vital…"

Sandman looked up at Grinch and then back down at me. He let out a breath and didn't try to wake me up as I finally fell asleep.

*Lightning 3-1* (In case you don't know, Lightning is the squadron of pilots at the very end of the mission 'Black Tuesday' I'm doing the squadron leader's POV because I'm going to be a fighter pilot so it should be interesting enough)

"This is Lighting 3-1. Guidance systems are back online, standing by with a full payload of JDAMs. Requesting clearance," I spoke clearly as I looped around the city, waiting for a reply.

"Lightning 3-3, you are cleared to engage," Overlord replied quickly and I straightened out, targeting a group of jammers on a roof nearby.

"Bringin' the hard deck. T.O.T five seconds," I informed, oh formalities, got to hate them…

As my squadron and I closed on the building our missiles locked, "Weapons away," I said calmly, firing my payload and scoring a good hit on the jammers, clearing up what was left of the interference.

Next target was an enemy motor pool. I smirked to myself, now that formalities were out of the way, and fired again at the jeeps stored in the confines of the concrete barriers. I pulled up and rolled left to avoid a collision and searched for my next target.

"3-1, this his 3-2, I've got a chopper on radar but no eyes on, do you see him?" My wingman spoke suddenly.

I inverted flight to get a better look at what was below us and saw a chopper not too far away, "Copy 3-2, I've got him," I responded, locking on and downing the bird.

This was too easy, we already had air dominance in less than ten seconds.

"Lightning 3-1, be aware I'm picking up several signatures in your AO; how copy?" Command said hurriedly.

"That's a negative command, skies are clear," I replied, scanning the sky.

I flew higher up, closer to the clouds, feeling the G-forces push me back into the seat, "Wait a minute… I've got something on radar…" I said as a blip appeared on my radar, I climbed higher to find another squadron of Russian MiG-29's.

"Holy shit…" I heard my wingman mutter, "Can we take 'em?" he asked.

"Hell yeah, we can," I said, locking on to one and firing before he could fire his missiles at me, "Just keep an eye on your radar and finger on the trigger."

I passed through the center of their formation, flying too fast for them to get a lock on me. Now I had one on my tail and was on a collision course with another… Well shit… Time to pull out the good old stunts. I waited, the craft on my tail had a lock on and I was getting close to the one in front of me. Now or never… I thought, dumping my smoke counter-measure and pulling up sharply. I inverted again to see the effects of the trick. As expected, the two Russians, unable to see each other because of the smoke, crashed into one another.

Three down two to go. I saw 3-2 fire missiles at one of the others and shoot it down, "Splash one, 3-2, one to go," I said surely.

Then my lock-on warning blared and I cursed myself, smoke wasn't ready yet, I'd have to evade the missiles as best I could. The Russian fired two and I aileron rolled and dove right, pulling up on the yoke, performing an inverted barrel roll(a barrel roll when you go down instead of up, but you still end up behind the other plane…), to bring me up behind the MiG.

Don't know what an aileron roll is? Well, it's one of the first maneuvers I learned. It's a roll where the aircraft makes a full 360 degree rotation on the longitudinal axis. When it's done right, there's no change in altitude or heading; simply put: you come out of the maneuver going the same direction at the same height that you went into the roll at. People usually call it a 'barrel roll' which is completely different.

I locked onto the jet in front of me and fired one missile as a decoy so he'd fire his flares, then fired two more, effectively taking the jet down.

"Fighter down, skies are clear again, Command," I said simply.

Well, that was fun while it lasted… I thought to myself as I set my heading to RTB.

Okay guys, this is kind of an 'I'm sorry I hardly update and when I do its really short' chapter… But still… Anyway, I explained the aileron roll the way I did because people always call it a barrel roll, but it's not a barrel roll… the aileron and the barrel rolls are actually quite opposite. If you'd like to know more, message me or say so in a review, I won't bore all my readers by explaining flight dynamics… I had fun with this chapter and I'm glad I finally got one out less than a month after my last update :D By the way, I don't know whose POV to do next… Any suggestions?

Thanks for Reading, Fly High Aim Higher

~Spitfire out