As I walked into the simulator observation room, I immediately noticed two things out of the ordinary. The first was that Science had a few representatives here. Figures they wanted some people to monitor this 'test'. Second thing out of the ordinary was that Commander Palmer was in the room as well. Something not out of the ordinary is that I beat Majestic here as well.

I quickly snapped to attention once I walked into the room. "At ease, Spartan. I'm just here because its not every day that Science requests such an unbalanced War Games match. I'm interested to see how this goes."

Just then, Majestic walked in. DeMarco seemed dead focused on winning. He just completely ignored me as he walked by. The rest of Majestic gave me a small nod in greeting, one that I returned. Now that everyone was here, the briefing could begin.

"Spartans, as you can guess, this will not be a normal War Games match. In addition to the uneven sides, Science wants an accurate test, which means we will be more accurately simulating combat situations. That means no 'respawn.' Once you are downed, you are out. In addition, there will be no ordinance calls, and no score tracker or time limit. The match will end either when Majestic is wiped out, or when Thompson is eliminated. Weapons will be found in the match, but you can choose your armor abilities and packages. Good luck out there."

With a quick "Yes, ma'am," we walked out of the observation room and out onto the simulator deck. We took our places, me standing on one side of a large yellow line, Majestic on the other, each of us with nothing to do but stare down the opposition.

The sudden blaring of the sirens in the room was just a warning that the arena was about to build itself. Nothing really interesting, I had seen it thousands of times. The yellow line disappeared, and Majestic and I started to drift away from each other, the ground slowly gaining texture as we went. By the time the ground under my feet stopped moving, I was able to recognize the map. Shatter. One of the newer maps, but still one I knew my way around. I could tell that I would be starting by the receiver of the teleporter. I assumed the weapons would be inside the reactor room.

When the map was finished building, the loudspeakers gave a five second countdown. On the last beep, I started moving. In the reactor room, there was a weapon rack, just like I thought. However, one thing that I did not count on was the weapon selection. Or lack of selection. The only thing on the rack was a sim knife. Used for safety in War Games, the knife was not sharp, or even solid, but a spring loaded piece of metal. When you went to stab someone with it, the 'blade' would be pushed into the hilt by the victim's body, and the knife would emit a pulse to lockdown the armor, signifying a 'kill'.

"Well then. Saria, could you patch me into their com frequency and give me an ear on them?"

"Already on it. Just a second... There. Enjoy your eavesdropping."

"Thanks."

Already I could hear Majestic's com chatter. "This it? An assault rifle, a DMR, a shotgun, a pistol, a BR, and a bunch of grenades?" DeMarco seemed disappointed by their arsenal. "Shotgun!" I figured Hoya would go for the shotgun. DeMarco just ignored him. "Alright, here's the plan. Hoya, you go ahead, see if you can flush him out. Madsen and Grant will lay up in positions for overwatch. Thorne and I will be insurance."

"What are we going to do?"

"I'll use Active-camo to get the drop on Hoya when he gets here. He'll probably have some grenades on him, those could come in handy. Only problem is that I don't have re-supply active."

"That's not a problem. I can switch you armor packages. It's a matter of software anyways. Your armor has all of them installed, the system just can't handle the load of all of them on at once."

"Good. Do it."

Any further conversation was ended, as a red dot showed up on the edge of my tracker. Just to make sure he could tell where I was, I moved across the room. I then slowly made my way to a corner, one by the door where it seemed like Hoya was going to come in. Once Hoya got close, I dropped in a crouch and activated the active-camo.

I was right. Hoya came in the doorway I thought he would, and once in, he started a slow sweep of the room. "DeMarco, the guy's got active-camo. I'm still gonna try to flush him out." Once his back was turned, I crept my way closer to him. The last few feet I rose up and ran at him, giving Hoya just enough time to turn towards me before I tackled him and drove the sim knife into his visor. There was a soft click, and he immediately stopped struggling.

I picked up his shotgun, and looked to see what kind of grenades he had. He had two plasma grenades. "Good. Now we have some firepower. Be careful, they are probably watching the doors."

As I slowly crept out of the doors, I noticed that the large rock outcroppings blocked view of the door from the center guardhouse, the most likely spot for a sniper to set up, if he had someone to watch his back. I dropped into a crouch and activated active-camo again, and slowly crept up the sloped rock face. I stopped when I was able to see someone in the center window hole. I crept back, so I was out of view, and thought out a plan of action. The ramp was too far away to sprint to, and my active-camo probably would not last me long enough to get to cover. After a minute, I finally decided on an action. With camo on, I stood up long enough to hurl a plasma grenade at the figure in the window before ducking down again. Over Majestic's coms, I heard Grant utter a confused "Wha-" before the grenade exploded.

I peeked back over the rock again. The guardhouse was clear, with the figure, who I took to be Grant, slumped against a wall, disabled. I took the chance and quickly made my way up the ramp and into the guardhouse, and picked up the abandoned BR on the floor. Madsen must have seen me because he immediately chimed in on the coms. "Hey, Thorne. He's up in the guardhouse. I could use some help out here."

"On my way."

To try to pinpoint Madsen's location, I briefly stuck my head out the window facing their side of the map, then quickly drew it back in. A DMR round just missed my head, coming from the direction of their reactor room. Madsen was probably on the roof. With camo on, I moved out into the window and oped fire on Madsen with the BR. He seemed to panic a bit, because instead of withdrawing back into cover, he put down a regen field. His shields did not get a chance to recharge under my continuous fire, and Madsen dropped just as Thorne came around the corner, saw me, and opened fire.

The assault rife ate away at my shields a little, but I got back into cover before they took too much damage. Thorne was coming up the ramp, trying to catch me in the open for a burst with his assault rifle. I switched to the shotgun, and as soon as he came around the corner, I blasted him. He didn't stand a chance.

I went down the ramp to their side, and turned the corner, headed to their base to look for DeMarco. It was just me and him. When I turned the corner, and came out through the rocks, I was face to knee with a Mantis. I quickly darted back behind the cover of the rocks.

"How are we going to take that out? You don't have the firepower."

I looked around for a second, and got an idea. "I got something. I'm gonna need as much speed as I can get, and I need you to be ready to activate mag-boots on my signal."

"Working... Okay. Ready."

"Good."

I dropped my guns. I needed speed, and they would just slow me down. After a deep breath, I raced out, towards the closest rock pillar to the Mantis. With bullets hitting the ground just after my feet leave the ground, I knew it was going to be close. When I got close enough, I jumped. The bullets left my trail, seems like DeMarco thought I was just running for better cover. Once I hit the rock, I jumped off it, sailing even higher into the air. I lined it up perfectly.

"Now!"

With a thump, I landed heavily on top of the Mantis. As soon as DeMarco realized where I was, he did everything he could do to shake me off. Good thing Saria got the mag-boots on. With a satisfying crunch, I planted my remaining plasma grenade on the hatch of the Mantis. "Turn them off."

I quickly jumped off the top of the Mantis, making sure to be out of the blast radius and the firing ark of the guns. Behind me, the Mantis exploaded with a satisfying boom. Suddenly, the room went back to the featureless white state it was in before the match. Majestic got up off the ground, most of them groaning. I offered a hand to DeMarco, but he just ignored it. Commander Palmer came in over the speakers.

"Congratulations, Thompson. You managed to beat Majestic singlehanded. Lets hope that's enough combat data for the eggheads. Majestic, Thompson managed to beat you singlehanded. Looks like you need a little more practice. You are all dismissed."

Saria came in through my internal helmet speakers. "We did it."

"Yes we did."

Well, that's that. Anyway, that was my first combat heavy chapter, so how did I do? Also, rest assured, the crossover will be happening soon, most likely at the end of the next chapter, maybe the chapter after that.

EDIT: It was pointed out to me that I used "Crimson" instead of Majestic at one point. This has been fixed.