Yay, another chapter, enjoy.

"Dot, cut the audio," an authoritative voice echoed through the bridge of purple ship.

In that bridge stood fifteen humans, six of them standing in heavy, bulky armor, another six standing in vacuum suits sans the helmets, and another three all in civilian clothing. Of those six standing in bulky armor, four of them were standing with their helmets off, revealing stunned faces that normally showed almost no emotion at all.

The Spartans, UNSC Army Troopers and Pilots, along with the civilians they had picked up along the way to escape Reach had just been watching various data streams a UNSC 'dumb' AI, aka Dot, had compiled for them regarding 'Earth'. After slipping away from Reach, the group had gone about the arduous task of removing any Covenant tracking devices left on the ship and the various alien weaponry aboard. The task had been expedited somewhat by the four alien engineers aboard, as they were the ones who knew where every tracker on the actual ship itself was.

After they had finally removed all Covenant tracking devices, the crew had then gone about patching the ship up. Again, the alien engineers had been instrumental; the floating snails as Patrick had taken to calling them could fix anything, even molecular damage. The damages were extensive, but they were easily repaired. Armor plating was removed, repaired by the engineers, and replaced. Plasma turrets were taken offline, realigned, and test fired. Damage done to the interior was the last damage to be fixed, though it was logistically the easiest damage to repair.

Since then, the corvette had been attempting to reconnect with the UNSC. Slipping from colony to colony, they found the planets, but none of them showed any sign of human presence, either present or past. It had gotten to the point where they even went back to Reach, only to find it sitting there, a big green ball, perfectly unharmed, and perfectly uncolonized. In a final act of desperation, Noble Two had suggested going all the way to Earth, if there were any human's anywhere, that's where they'd be.

Of course now here they were, in high orbit above the North American continent, watching Dot's summary on the humanity they had found. This Earth was still primitive, they hadn't even left the solar system yet. Computers were still slow, weapon's were still underpowered, and individual countries still went to war with each other, but that's not what had the group stunned.

Fantastical beings populated the planet below. Oh sure most of them were plain ordinary humans but there were plenty of anomalous people down there too. Men and women capable of running faster than cars, lifting tanks, even flying without any assistance from complicated machinery, there were dozens, hundreds of these people down there, and they made no show of hiding their abilities. Different organizations had popped around the globe, consisting of many of these powerful people, the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and many more.

Shock filled the people standing on the bridge of that ship, as well as dozens of questions, the most common of them being, where were they?

The lead Spartan, Commander Carter, turned towards the group after putting a mute on the news stream they had been watching, "Thoughts."

One of the Spartan's who was still wearing his helmet raised his hand, "Uh, yeah, I got one. Is this some fucking joke?"

"Thoughts, Emile," Carter chastised, "Not questions, I'm sure we've all got enough of those."

This time a Spartan not wearing his helmet spoke up, "We could be back in time."

"Doesn't seem likely," Kat said, "We might have traveled back in time, but that isn't the only thing that happened."

"What do you mean?" Noble One asked his second in command.

"Well I don't know about the rest of you, but I certainly don't recall any superheroes in any of my history lessons," Noble Two elaborated, "If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say we're in an entirely different dimension."

This time it was one of the troopers who spoke up, "A different dimension? How?"

"Well if you think about it," Sarah Travers, one of the civilians and a former chief engineer aboard a freighter, "a slipspace drive already takes us into a different dimension, one where the law of relativity doesn't apply. It's not inconceivable that it could take us to a different dimension, one where there's an alternate Earth and an alternate humanity."

Kat nodded towards the blonde engineer, "Precisely, Commander."

Carter took a look around the room. The Spartans had recovered from their shock fairly quickly, Jorge was calling up all acquired information on one of the super humans, Jun, Emile and Six were looking over his shoulders, and Kat was looking at Carter expectantly. The troopers and pilots had their eyes downcast, looking a little lost. The two civilian engineers looked surprisingly calm, though that was probably due to the fact there were no eight feet tall aliens attempting to exterminate them right now. The pilot, Patrick, was hanging over the backrest of his seat and was actually silent, for now. The sixteenth member of the group, Doctor Elizabeth Sanders, was the only one who seemed unconcerned by the events.

"Anything to add, Doc?"

Beth looked at the Commander, "Oh nothing really, just thinking."

"About?"

"About how absolutely perfect this is," Doctor Sanders elaborated, "About how this would happen to us."

Carter looked confused, "How do you mean?"

"Well think about it," she said, "We were all left behind in someway shape or form. HIGHCOM probably has you, me, and the rest of the UNSC personnel listed as either MIA or KIA, and the civilian records will show Hannah, Sarah, and Patrick as missing, presumably dead. None of us here had any immediate family, no loved ones left behind. If there were better candidates to be stranded in an alternate dimension then… I don't know. The odds are simply incredible."

By the time she was done talking, everyone on the bridge was looking at her, some with melancholy, some with understanding, and Patrick's eyes danced with mirth.

Noble One sighed, looking back towards Earth, "Kat when do you think we ended up here? In this universe, I mean."

"I'd say it was when we were fleeing the Covenant over Reach," Kat said, "The drive was acting funny after that one. Didn't want to work right, had to change a couple of the universal constants to get us back on track. If this dimension has slightly different set of physics than ours, then I suppose we'd have to change those to compensate."

"Could we go back the same way?"

"Oh I suppose, you know, if we had another CAS assault carrier lying around that we could blow up, then I suppose we could initiate another slipspace jump just before the energy wave reaches us, tossing us around inside slipspace before we come out. But even then, we'd have no way of assuring we'd come out in our universe. We might come out in one with just as many super humans all banded together into some sort of justice league."

Carter rolled his eyes at his Lieutenant Commander's sarcasm, "Alright, I get the point. Do you think you could find a way to get us back?"

Kat nodded, "Sure, I'd need an army of Smart AI's at my beck and call and ten years, but I could do it."

Carter turned away from Kat, looking out the corvette's window and down towards Earth. It would be dawn in the eastern United States in a few hours, and the inaction was killing the group, "Jun, Emile, Six, I have a mission for you three."

…

Three hours later and Jun, Emile, and Noble Six stood inside a clothing warehouse, in the men's big and tall section, selecting pants. The shop was otherwise empty, due to the fact the store was not yet open and that the Spartan's were, in fact, stealing the clothes. They weren't worried about being caught, however, they had easily picked the backdoor's lock and avoided the primitive security system and Dot was overriding the security cameras, feeding them a loop while it monitored the Spartans.

"Emile I think your pants are on backwards," Jun said as he looked at the dark skinned man's khaki cargo pants.

"What are you talking about?" Emile asked defensively, "big square pockets in the front where they're easier to reach, and two holsters going back for your sidearms!"

Six, out of his armor for the first time it had been repaired, gave his opinion, "No, I think Jun is right. Remember civilians don't just walk around with sidearms. I think those square pockets go on the back and the zipper is on the front?"

Jun slid on his pair of pants, "Yeah, that makes more sense," he shifted uncomfortably, "Why would civvies wear something so uncomfortable? I mean they're chafing really badly!"

Emile looked down, "I think we forgot to get underwear."

Six blinked, "What's underwear?"

"When I was a kid, I used to wear underwear," Emile explained, "Putting those on is one of the few memories I still have."

Noble Six stood back, "Yeah, I suppose that would make sense. Jun, go get us some underwear."

"Sure thing, LT," the tan Spartan replied, moving off towards a display rack with the words undergarments displayed on a sign.

Six sighed and said, "How do we not know this stuff?"

"Cause we were kidnapped at a young age, stripped of most of our most precious memories and forced to fight an unbeatable enemy?"

"Well, yeah," Six said back to Emile, "but you'd think we'd have to get dressed to do that!"

"Yeah, but we wore one piece jumpsuits during our training. Then we wore SPI armor which also had an one piece jumpsuit underneath, then we started wearing MJOLNIR," Emile said, trying to rationalize their lack of understanding.

"Well, MJOLNIR is far less complicated."

Emile snorted a laugh, "I gotta agree with you on that one, LT."

Jun appeared around a rack of clothing and tossed each of them a small plastic package, "Here, these were the biggest ones they had."

"Jun," Six started, "These are women's plus size thongs."

Jun and Six heard the snapping of an elastic band on flesh and turned to find Emile standing there wearing a lacy red thong.

"Ooh," Emile said in appreciation, "This feels smooth!"

"Emile take it off."

"Bu-"

"That's an order!" Six turned to Jun, "And find us some men's underwear, and do it fast. This store opens at eight hundred hours."

Five minutes later all three Spartan's stood in front of a mirror, full ensemble, getting used to their civilian clothing. Jun wore an olive shirt, one of the biggest ones they had, that was practically skin tight. The khaki cargo pants were not quite as tight, but he certainly didn't have to wear a belt to keep it from falling around his ankles. A pair of size sixteen casual boots stuck out from underneath the long pants and to complete the outfit was one of three matching Rolex's Emile had snatched from a jewelry case.

Looking to his left, Noble Three caught Noble Four standing with his shirt off, running a thumb along the two new scars on his chest left from the Zealot's sword. The top scar ran from just below his collar bone to the top of his sternum and a few centimeters below that began the second scar from the second prong of the energy sword, this one ending just below level with the sternum.

"You have an unhealthy attachment to your scars, Four," Jun commented.

"Shut up," Emile replied as he put his grey shirt back on, "I just never got to see it before I was already back in my armor, that's all."

To the two Spartan's right, Six was looking into his reflections deep blue eyes. He was wearing the same outfit as the other two, khaki pants, size eighteen casual boots, but his shirt was white, to hide just how pale he really was. Brown hair cropped short, military style, blue eyes, and two thin scars running diagonally across his right cheek, probably from a lucky jackal or skirmisher.

"Ready, LT?" Jun asked Noble Six.

"Sure," the Lieutenant replied, "Emile go grab three casual jackets, we're going to need to conceal our sidearms."

Four just nodded and walked off to a different section of the store, leaving Three and Six alone by the mirrors. Jun looked at the pale Spartan for a bit, taking in his appearance really for the first time. Sure they had ridden down together in the Pelican unarmored, in fact they had ridden down naked, but this was the first time they hadn't been busy doing something else.

"Store personnel will be arriving soon to get the store ready to open," Six said, "We should be out of here in the next ten minutes."

"Ah, it won't be a problem," Jun casually assured his superior officer, "By the way, LT, what are we going to call you in public?"

Blue eyes flitted up to Jun's face, "What?"

"Well we can't call you LT the entire time, and Noble Six or just Six isn't really any better."

"Well, um," Six stumbled for a bit before spotting an employee's nametag on the ground. Leaning over to pick it up, the Spartan scrutinized it for a second before reading the name displayed, "Daniel, that'll work for now."

The bald Spartan smirked, "Sure thing, Danny boy!"

Emile came back, three tan leather jackets in hand, "What's going on?"

"LT, just picked a name," Jun said.

"Really?" Emile said, "Is it Lieutenant Buzzkill?"

"For the duration of this mission you are to call me, Daniel," 'Daniel' told Noble Four, "and any further jokes about my mood will result in a formal reprimand."

"Yes sir, Lieutenant Daniel Buzzkillington, sir!"

"Fuck off, lets get out of here," Six said as he led the way to the back of the store.

"Right, anyway," Emile said as he followed, handing Jun a jacket, "I also managed to find shoulder holsters. They're a little small for the M6C/SOCOM, but they will fit and manage to keep the weapon's profile hidden."

"Where'd you find that?" Daniel asked, wondering why a civilian clothing store would have a weapon holster on sale.

Emile shrugged, "You guys looked like you were talking, so I checked outside the door and had a look at the rest of the mall. Something called Scheels next door, had em on sale."

The three Spartan's stepped outside, jackets on, weapons concealed, and as casually as they could, walked down the parking lot. A couple of cars were already parked outside, but none of them were occupied. Most of them were probably overnight cleaners that had been elsewhere in the mall. The sun was just peaking over the horizon as the three men stepped onto the sidewalk.

"You know," Jun began, "We're going to need transportation. And money."

"Transport first," Daniel ordered, "Then communications, then money."

"You know if we had money we could just buy transport and comm. pieces," Emile pointed out.

"Then they'd have us on record," Six came back, "I sure don't have an identity set up in this universe, do you?"

"Well if we're going to be stealing transport," Jun said with a sly grin, "Then I know just where to go!"

Jun started jogging down the street, of course jogging for a Spartan meant they were going just under the speed limit of the suburban town. It was a Sunday morning, and as a result most of the roads were fairly clear, though every time they did come across a car on the road the three slowed down significantly.

Only fifteen minutes later the three Spartan's arrived at Johnson's Ford Motors, a fairly large car lot. Plenty of sedans, SUV's, trucks, and muscle cars lined the lot, and even better was the closed sign hanging in the window of the office building.

"Jun, how'd you know this was here?" Daniel asked as the three jogged up to the dealership.

Emile moved to the door, slipping his kukri out of its hip sheath and slipped the door jam, while Jun answered the Lieutenant, "Spotted it on the way down when I went up to the cockpit to escape the civvies' stares."

"Yeah, what was up with that? You'd think Hannah and Sarah had never seen a naked person before," Emile asked as he popped the door open.

Daniel shrugged, "I don't know, but did you see the way Kelly was blushing when we showed up to the Pelican?"

"Hell, how many times did we have to get Hannah and Sarah back on track with the briefing?" Emile pointed out.

"Too many, didn't really like the way Sarah was staring at me that's for sure," Jun said as he approached the general manager's office, "Found the office, how much you want to bet the keys are in here?"

Jun moved over to a steel box on the wall. There was a paper note on the front of the box that had black writing on it, "Looks like this is it! What do you guys want to drive?"

"Something with a hell of a lot of space," Emile said, "Cause I sure as hell ain't sitting in the back seat and I sure as hell won't listen to your bitching!"

Six was sitting at the manager's desk, flipping through a booklet on several model's of vehicles outside in the lot, "Lets get a four door pickup, we won't have to crouch down to get in there, and it's got plenty of room both in the front seats and back seats."

Jun shrugged, "Sounds good, so… what? What models are the trucks?"

"Grab the keys for an F-250 Super Duty," Daniel ordered, "That should suit our needs nicely."

"Yes sir!"

"Shotgun!" Emile shouted, much to Jun's chagrin.

"You always get shotgun!" he whined.

"Uh, cause I got a shotgun," Emile replied flippantly as he walked over to the line of F-250's, "So, what color?"

Six sighed in exasperation, "Why the hell do civvies have so many options? We'll go with the tan one."

"Alright, desert camo!" Jun said excitedly as he jumped into the back seat.

Six and Emile sat down in the truck, the former staring at the controls for a second. Emile took notice of Daniel's confusion, "Something wrong, sir?"

The Lieutenant looked back at Noble Four, "It's just that you'd think that a warthog's driver's seat and one of these things would look the same, but I couldn't even tell you what some of these gauges are."

Jun leaned over Daniel's shoulder from the backseat and pointed at two of the gauges, "Well that's velocity in miles per hour, and I think that one's rotations per minute."

Emile leaned over, "Yeah, and I think that one is fuel."

"No, no, I think that's battery power, the one below it is fuel," Six corrected.

Jun pointed at the buttons on the center piece, "What are these for?"

Daniel looked down at one of the buttons and read the white text, "Sirius XM radio, ah! It's a long range radio system!"

Emile smiled excitedly, "Perfect, turn it on and lets see if we can get the Commander."

Six turned the key and the diesel engine roared to life. Each of the Spartan's could hear and feel the engine rumbling beneath them, giving off a sense of power. The dash lit up, all of the small LED lights blinking to life as power flooded through the circuitry.

Emile was grinning, "I like this thing!"

Jun grimaced, "A little loud don't you think?"

"Just adds to the appeal, Three," Noble Four smirked as he ran a palm over the dash.

Daniel looked over the controls, "I'm going to get us out of here, use that radio to try and contact the Commander."

"Sure thing, sir," Emile replied.

"Daniel, from now on, as long as we're in our civvies, you call me Daniel," Six ordered.

"Yes sir… Daniel," Sierra 239 said before leaning over and hitting a few buttons on the radio. Nothing happened at first until he saw a button with a power symbol decaled on it. Smirking, Emile pressed the button and expected to be greeted by static or radio chatter, but was instead greeted by a most alarming noise…

"What is that?!" Daniel shouted from his spot behind the wheel. The Lieutenant was cringing away from the radio, unfortunately putting him closer to the speaker in the truck's door.

Jun offered an opinion through clenched teeth, "It sounds like an adolescent girl squealing out the word 'baby'!"

"Shut it off!" Six ordered, Emile couldn't comply fast enough.

"Yeah," he said looking up at his superior officer, "I don't think this thing is a comm. system."

Jun looked around the front of the vehicle and spotted something in front of Emile, "Hey, Four, open that compartment up, see if there's something in there."

The Spartan popped the handle, opening the glove box and found a booklet inside, "Check it out, a manual!"

"Read it, see if you can find anything about a GPS system."

Emile flipped to the table of contents, "You better believe this baby has a GPS system! Built in too!"

"Can you operate it?"

"Should be able to, lets just flip this here and…" Emile watched a blank touch screen on the dash turned on, displaying a menu, "There we go, what do you want to do now?"

"We need to find an electronics store, or something that would contain communications devices capable of integrating into the digital mainframe present. That way Dot can hook us up with a direct line to the Commander," Daniel explained.

"I can find one for you, though we'll need money to buy one you realize," Emile pointed out.

Jun spoke up from the backseat, "We could always steal some, it's only o eight hundred hours. Sure some civvies might be up and working, but according to Hannah and Sarah most of these people will probably still be asleep on a Sunday. Hell we could probably find a store that isn't even open on Sunday's."

"I don't like the idea of us becoming habitual thieves," Six said from the front seat, "but we'll need a solid connection to Dot before we can acquire currency. Four find us an electronics store."

"Already on it, boss," Emile said, tapping the touch screen, "There we go, looks like we're about half a mile away from something called Jersey Electronics, whatever the fuck that is."

Daniel looked up at the GPS screen, seeing a red arrow indicate a left turn up ahead, "This thing shows you where to turn? Why not just show a map of you, your objective, and the roadways in between?"

Four shrugged, "I don't know civvies are weird. Looks like that's it up ahead."

Six looked up and saw a small brick building standing on a corner block, a small cement parking lot out front. The Spartan's superior eyesight easily picked out the closed sign on the front of the store's glass doors, "Jun, I want you to go, Emile and I will circle the block. By the time we get back I expect you to be done."

"Sure thing, Daniel," Three said as he popped the driver's side backdoor and slid out onto the asphalt.

Jun approached the entrance quickly and quietly as he heard the diesel pickup behind him move off. Removing his combat knife, the Spartan cut the deadbolt and pushed the door open. The inside of the store was spacious, if a little unorganized. There was a customer service desk directly in front of him that was put right in the middle of the room, a few isles directly to his right were full of electronics, and it looked like the store continued on to the left, but was obscured by a tan colored wall.

He hopped over the customer service desk and sat down at one of the computers, "Excuse me but I'm looking for phone to fit my crazy alien killing lifestyle," Jun joked as he easily passed the primitive firewalls and began looting through the database, "Can you recommend one that won't crack if a hunter knocks me on my ass?"

Jun continued to easily run through the computer's various safety measures as though they weren't there. Noble Three may not be Noble Team's tech expert, but he was easily the second best when it came to hacking, decrypting, and repairing various electronics. As a result, the primitive firewalls were no match for the Spartan's rapid fingers.

"Here we go…" Jun muttered as he found an appropriate model. Grabbing three boxes from underneath the desk, he pulled the large flat devices from their boxes, inserted a charged battery, and turned them on, "Gonna need service first…"

More rapid typing and soon all three smart phones were added onto someone else's data plan. They wouldn't suffer a ridiculously huge increase in their bill, however. The Spartan's just needed to access a network so Dot could establish communications, once that was done, the phones would be disconnected from the data plan and no one would be the wiser.

Jun jumped back over the desk and walked out of the store just as the tan truck pulled up. He easily slid into the back seat, and the truck kept going, "Got em, these 'cellular phones' should be able to link up with Dot."

Emile and Daniel both grabbed one from Jun, turning it on and staring at the screen. Nothing happened. They were connected to something called 4G, but either Dot couldn't access them, or couldn't detect them. They were, after all, just three specks in a nearly infinite sea of data.

"Maybe we should use this 'Google' bar up here at the top," Emile suggested.

Daniel nodded, "Everyone enter Dot's serial number, that should grab her attention."

…

Back on the corvette, fourteen people were scrambling through the ship. Jorge, Sarah, and Sergeant Rodriguez were in the port side cargo bay, counting and indexing the various weapons and ammunition. Kat, Hannah, and Corporal Burgess were in the starboard cargo bay, cataloguing the various scavenged vehicles and performing maintenance upon them with two of the engineers. The pilots along with Corporal Rayne were in the hangar bay, counting the ammunition in the fighter's guns and repairing minor burns on armor with the other two engineers. Doctor Sanders was in her medbay, watching the news streams Dot was picking up as she catalogued her medical supplies.

On the bridge stood the final two members of the motley crew. Carter sat on a new chair stationed by one of the consoles and was reading threat assessments compiled by Dot, currently a villain named Rhino, and Patrick sat at his usual spot at the helm, keeping the ship in high orbit.

Sighing, Patrick swung his chair around to look at the Commander, "What are we going to name her?"

Noble One looked up from his console screen, "Her? Who's her?"

The young Scott held out his arms and extended his legs in the chair in exclamation, "The ship! What are we going to name the ship?!"

Carter furrowed his brow, "Why do we need to name the ship?"

Patrick scoffed, "Well firstly," he held out one finger and tapped it, "She's mighty beautiful. I mean she's got engines that make a carrier's look like a cigarette lighter, hull shinier than a diamond, and a lovely seductive shape."

He extended another finger, "Second, she's tough. This little girl took more beatings in the skies over Reach than my father's favorite bar stool. Cruisers, battlecruisers, a damned assault carrier, nothing could put our old girl down."

Another finger shot out, "And that brings me to my last point, she's damn near unparalleled in combat record! Let's see, her first two kills were those little cruisers, not much I know, but they were flawless kills. The third was a damned battlecruiser, one of the mainstays of the Covenant fleet and one tough bastard to put down, but this ship handled perfectly. Of course those three are just the toppings, the real meat of her combat record is the fleet of seventeen ships she blew up!"

Carter tilted his head, "The corvette did not destroy any of these ships, the explosion from the assault carrier did."

"And you prove my point!" Patrick exclaimed, "We don't have the weapons to kill seventeen Covenant capital ships, so we improvised! This girl performed flawlessly, and using unconventional tactics, destroyed a fleet that could have smashed an entire colony's defenses!"

Carter shook his head and sat back in his seat, "Alright, you've convinced me, what should we christen the ship, Mr. Bullock?"

Patrick stood out of his seat, "What was that name you used… When we were talking to that assault carrier?"

Carter blinked, "I used the name 'Noble Vengeance' when I first contacted the CAS, but I never used the same name twice, had to keep them guessing, why?"

"Aren't you guys called Noble Team?"

"All Spartan's aboard this ship are a part of Noble Team, yes."

"And from what I heard you guys were stationed on Reach?"

Carter sighed, "Ever since the Battle of Fumirole, yes."

"Then I guess destroying that fleet over Reach was a sort of Vengeance, right?"

Noble One raised an eyebrow at the young pilot, "Noble Vengeance? Your sure? When we get back to the UNSC this thing will most likely be torn from the inside out, studied from every possible angle, this ship won't ever see active service again."

Patrick sat back, "You really think we'll be able to get back that easily, sir?"

"Why do you call me sir? Your not a soldier," Carter asked.

"You are a Spartan," Patrick replied, "and Commander of this ship and I'm your pilot, that's worth a few sirs every now and then, ain't it? But you never answered my question."

Carter leaned back into his chair, "Honestly, Mr. Bullock? No, I don't think we'll be getting back to the UNSC anytime soon, maybe we'll never get back but… I have to keep the hope that we'll be back in eight years."

"Why eight, sir?"

The Commander grimaced, "That was the latest projection. Eight years until the total decimation of all UNSC assets. Another twenty to completely annihilate the human race, but after the UNSC has been destroyed, all humanity can do is run."

"Jaysus," Patrick breathed, "That ain't good… do you think there's any chance for the human race back there?"

"Possibly, depends on whether the package was worth it," Carter admitted.

"Package? What package?"

Noble One looked up at the pilot with a glare, "You already know one of the UNSC's highly guarded secrets, I'm not about to let you in on another one."

The pilot nodded and leaned back into his seat, smiling sadly, "You know we probably won't get back in time, right? It'll take decades for us to get back, if we do at all, but there is a humanity here, now."

"What are you suggesting, Mr. Bullock?"

Patrick shook his head, "I'm not sure, maybe just that you can fulfill your oaths to 'Protect Earth and all Her Colonies' here."

Carter looked down, furrowing his brow, then looked up, about to speak, but was interrupted by the starboard door opening up, admitting Kat, Kelly, and Marcus to the bridge.

Kat stood at attention, as did the other two, "Reporting in, sir."

Noble One stood up and faced the three, "Let's begin with the firearms and ammunition," he said, tilting his head towards the Sergeant.

Marcus stepped forward, "Thirty MA37 ICWS with four thousand rounds, twenty three M392 Designated Marksman Rifles with eight hundred and fifty five rounds, ten BR55's with two thousand rounds, five SRS99 SAS Anti Materiel's with three hundred and twenty four rounds, eighteen M6J PDWS with one thousand and fifty rounds…"

Carter held up a hand, "Lets stick to what kind of weapons we have, we'll worry about quantities later."

"Ah, yes sir," Rodriguez said, somewhat embarrassed, "We have a couple of SPNKR Launchers, only a few M739's but a lot of ammo, just three M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifles, we even have a few new special operations weapons."

The Commander tilted his head, "What kind of special operations weapons?"

"Well you know of the M7 Caseless Sub-Machinegun, well the Trafalgar had a few new prototypes for a new model of the M7 called the M7S. Basically just an SMG with a silencer, but there is a telescoping holographic sight, and an extended stock. Then of course there's the M6C SOCOM's the pilots brought with them, but we've also have a few dozen underslung forty mike mikes and shotties for the MA37's, not to mention a few cases of High Explosive rounds for the SRS99. Plus a few new explosive weapons I'm looking forward to trying out."

"Such as?"

"Something called a Sticky Detonator, a pistol that shoots packets of C12 basically, and an Asymmetric Recoilless Carbine, a railgun."

"Very good, is that it?" the Commander asked.

Marcus looked down at the pad, "Uh, that's it for weapons, of course we have plenty of ammunition for the Sabres, Pelican, even the Sparrowhawk and the Falcon. Missile pods for the Sabres and Hawk, and we snatched fourteen Archer missile pods from the Trafalgar."

The Commander nodded, "Good work, grab twelve of each weapon, for the ones you can of course, and put them down in the armory below us. Kat, report."

The Lieutenant Commander stepped forward as Marcus left the bridge to carry out Carter's orders, "Jorge sure didn't skimp on the salvage operations. We've got three Warthogs sitting in the cargo bay, two of them are your average hogs, mounted with LAAG's, but the other one we got in there has a M68 ALIM."

Carter rose an eyebrow, "A Gauss Hog? Good, what else?"

"One Scorpion, very nice condition, but we've only got twelve shells for the main gun. but what really interests me is the Revenant still tucked away in the back corner. I hopped in, seems to work but I haven't had a chance to try out the plasma mortar. Engineers seem to think everything's in working order."

The Commander nodded, "Very good, Kat. Organize the vehicles in the bay so the Pelican can easily pick them up… including the Revenant."

"Yes sir," Kat nodded as she moved back into the ship.

Carter turned to the last section head, "Lieutenant, report."

Unlike the other two, Kelly simply stood where she was as she didn't have to separate herself from the others, "All birds are fueled and ready to go sir. The ammunition for the guns that Marcus was talking about, well I've already taken the liberty of having Mayweather and Graves go and grab some, top off the ammo drums."

"Fairly simple report, short and sweet," Carter stated, "I never asked, how did the flight down to the surface go?"

At the mention of the Pelican ride, Kelly's face grew beat red, "Uh… it was… um… very… informative, sir."

Carter tilted his head, "Informative? Were you listening in on the debrief?"

"There was plenty of debriefing sir," Kelly admitted, "In fact your Spartans weren't wearing any at all… sir."

Carter blinked, "Of course they weren't wearing clothes, all they had was MJOLNIR and they couldn't just leave that in a dumpster."

Kelly's face was still flushed, "Yeah, but they could have wrapped something around their, um, you know…"

This time it was Patrick who spoke up, "Their trouser snakes?"

Kelly was on the verge of tears with how much she was blushing, "More like trouser anacondas."

The Commander frowned, "Perhaps I should have them purchase some clothing while they are down there. We can't stay in our armor forever and obviously you and the other non-Spartan's would not appreciate us walking around naked."

"Oh I don't know," Patrick said, "That Catherine, she's a fine example of lady… I'll shut up now."

"Good idea," Noble One said, turning his glare away from the pilot, "Lieutenant, I want you to take the Sabres out for a spin, get us a good look of the rest of the planet, see if there are any anomalies, any space stations, anything."

"Yes, sir," Kelly turned to leave, but stopped and turned around, "Sir permission to grab a bite to eat first?"

"Granted," Carter replied, "Dot make a general announcement, twenty minute break. Pilot I want those skids up in thirty."

Lieutenant Anderson smiled back at the Spartan, "Yes sir."

As the female pilot left the bridge, Patrick turned to the Commander, "Sergeant seemed a little…"

"Green?" Carter asked rhetorically, "You'd be right. He's only been in the service for two years, made Sergeant directly out of basic due to his apparent natural leadership abilities. Highly skilled marksman, a preference for long range assault weapons, adept with a combat knife, and an incredible tendency for survival."

Patrick tilted his head, "Sounds like that came straight from a report."

Noble One nodded, "Directly from his personnel file. I read the report a month ago, just before Operation UPPERCUT when I found he was going to be a part of the initial assault force, his and the rest of the strike force's. The Sergeant's file continues on to state the various operations he's taken part in. His first outpost was a small agricultural colony, there were probably only seven thousand soldiers there and only a few ships in orbit when the Covenant showed up. Fleet was smashed, the ground forces were crushed, but Rodriguez managed to get himself, a small squad, and thirty civilians through the blockade in a civilian transport painted purple."

"Purple?" the Scott asked incredulously, "And the Covvies bought that?"

"The reports suggested that it was brute led fleet," Carter admitted with a sly grin, and soon added a slight chuckle to the pilot's constant laughter, "Get to the hangar, pilot, I'm sure your not looking forward to another course of MRE's but you need something to eat."

"Aye, Captain," Patrick answered, sliding out of his seat, smile still on his face. The Spartan watched him go before striding over to the forward facing window, almost directly next to the helm and looked out onto the planet below.

Daylight had finally spread across most of the western hemisphere, though it was still an hour until daylight hit the Hawaiian Islands, and the clock on Carter's wrist mounted TACPAD showed that the three Spartans he had sent on the reconnaissance mission had hit the dirt nearly two hours ago. If all was going well, the team should be working on a way to contact the corvette…

"Commander…" Dot's monotonous voice suddenly pierced the silence of the bridge, gathering its sole occupant's attention, "A search engine called Google has just requested information on the most peculiar of topics."

Carter turned towards the holographic screen Dot was currently occupying, "And this is relevant… how?"

"The topic happens to be ADT 6849-9, entered by three mobile devices northbound for New York City."

"Can we confirm that it is them?" the Commander asked, "Any way that you can get a look through any cameras near them, get a look at their faces?"

"Affirmative, Noble One, accessing forward facing camera on the second mobile device… now."

One of the windows facing away towards Earth suddenly had an image supersede that of the big blue-green marble. A dark face was peering directly at the Spartan on the bridge, though it was unlikely that the emerald orbs were actually capable of seeing Carter. The face turned to look at something to his left, Emile's mouth moved, speaking to whomever was to his left in the vehicle.

"Dot, can you connect this ship's comm. system with whatever those things are?"

"Already done, Noble One, would you like to speak with them?"

Carter nodded, "Do it," a pause, then Carter could hear an accented voice speaking.

"…aps if we could amplify the signal with the truck's built in radio?"

"Someone you'd like to talk to, Noble Three?" Noble One asked.

The other two's faces appeared on the other windows, Jun's face was pressed up against the screen, apparently he had been holding it quite closely, and past his head Carter could see a roadway past the bed of a pickup truck and a few cars following closely. Noble Six's camera was further away, most likely mounted on the dash of the vehicle they were in, allowing the Commander his first real look at the Lieutenant's pale face.

Six was the one to speak first, looking directly at the camera as though his image were on the screen, which it probably was, "Commander, sir, so far the mission has been a success, though we are currently stuck on a means to procure currency."

"I'll get Dot to work on it right away, in the meantime, you three should proceed further into New York City. I'll send you some coordinates for a parking garage, once your there, ditch the vehicle as I assume it's stolen."

"Jun's idea, sir," Six assured the Commander, "Emile's been researching means to acquire money quickly and legally. Most of them appear to be scams, and the only legitimate means involve gambling. There is mention of some sort of terminal, there are plenty scattered through the city, called ATM's. They always carry some currency internally, and are actually designed to expel specified amounts."

This time Emile spoke up, "You swipe some plastic card, enter a few numbers, make a selection, and POOF! Cash straight in your hands. According to the sign up ahead, this gas station has one. Think Dot could wire us some funds?"

"Dot?"

"Acquiring signal… You now have full access to the ATM nearest your location. When you are ready to use it, enter 6849 into the keypad."

Emile huffed, "Real original Dot. Commander we got any orders once we get into the city?"

"Ditch the vehicle, destroy any evidence of you ever being there, and explore the streets. Pay close attention to any conversations of relevance, any mentions of these super humans or mutants or whatever they call them. I'll contact you at 1600 hours, that's six hours."

…

Daniel turned off the interstate, pulling into wide concrete parking lot lined with four rows of gas pumps. The diesel truck pulled up next to a green colored pump, one with the words bio-diesel painted in white on green, lining up the tan truck's gas cap with the pump. He slipped the keys from the ignition and turned towards Emile.

"I'll top the tank off, head inside and grab some money. You said they use something called dollars?" Six asked to the green eyed Spartan's nod, "Grab… three thousand dollars, that should be enough for the day, if they are comparable to credits anyway."

Noble Four nodded and slid from the passenger seat, and walked over to the convenience store. Daniel turned to the other Spartan sitting in the back seat and found him digging through the boxes their phones had come in.

"Jun what are you doing?"

The bald Spartan held up a small earpiece, "Looks like these things came with comm. pieces, they're called bluetooths. Supposedly they link up with our 'phones' and act just like a headset."

Six nodded, "Sounds useful, link them all up. We don't want to have to hold our phones in the middle of combat."

"Yes, sir," Jun replied, already activating the small earpiece and tapping away at his phone's screen.

The pale Spartan opened up the driver's side door and slid out. The pump in front of him was covered in all sorts of little buttons, LED screens, and levers. It didn't take long to figure out how to get the pump working, and soon gas was being pumped into the large truck, at an agonizingly slow pace. When the fluid finally stopped flowing, Daniel disconnected the fuel line from the truck and walked towards the convenience store.

As soon as the Spartan stepped through the glass door, he immediately spotted the other enhanced soldier in the store, considering everyone else in there was doing their best not to stare at him. Long strides quickly took him towards the back of the store where the ATM was and bringing him alongside Emile who was standing behind a frail old woman who was currently using the machine.

"Daniel," Noble Four greeted, "Been waiting a little while, but I think she's almost done."

Six just nodded, watching the old woman peer at the screen through thick glasses, and quickly began to lose his patience.

"You've got to be kidding me," he muttered under his breath. The frail silver haired woman had been staring at the screen for five minutes, and had yet to touch a single button. Finally she reached out with a shaking hand and pressed a button, signaling the machine to spit out a few green paper bills.

"Finally," Emile whispered as he slid past the old woman and quickly assessed the machine. He punched in Dot's four digit serial number into the pad and was greeted with a number of options. Selecting withdrawal, Four typed in three thousand, and was greeted with an error.

"Apparently this machine doesn't carry that amount of money on it," he said to the Lieutenant.

"Go with the highest amount then, we don't want to run out before the day is over."

Emile nodded and punched in two thousand, this time getting a confirmation as the machine spat out twenty one hundred dollar bills, each adorned with a chubby man's face.

"Holy shit," an accented voice to the two Spartan's right said, "That's a lot a cash!"

The voice belonged to a man in a plaid flannel and faded blue jeans. The man himself was significantly shorter than the Spartans, but was certainly not a small man. His skin was slightly pale, though weathered, and his face adorned a thick mustache and the whispery strands of a mullet peaked around each side of his neck.

"You boys sure rollin in the dough!"

Emile looked at Daniel before responding, "Uh, yeah. Been in the military for quite a while, have a lot of back pay comin."

The man shook his head, "I'll say, that your truck out there? The Ford?"

This time the Lieutenant answered, "Yes, just bought it quite recently, actually, why?"

The man waved his hand dismissively, "Just saw the dealership name on there. Thought about getting one myself, you boys know if they've got anymore down there?"

Daniel nodded, "There were at least four others in the lot when we got ours."

The man nodded and moved towards the register where his family was standing. Six looked at Emile with a raised eyebrow, receiving a shrug in response, and started towards the register as well, intent on buying their gas and getting out of there, but halfway across the small store there emerged a terrible roar.

This time it was Four who raised an eyebrow, "Hungry?"

"Well we didn't eat breakfast, or anything the last two days since we were trying save ration packs. Perhaps we should get something to eat."

The dark skinned Spartan nodded towards a rack of food in the shape of circles, covered in cheese, meat, and some vegetables, "Looks like they got plenty of… whatever that is. Smells good to."

Daniel shook his head and said, "Carter told us to go deeper into the city, to observe and learn. A fuel station probably isn't the best place to do it. I think we should head into the city, find a restaurant of some sort, one with an open atmosphere, and eat there."

…

"Wow," a blonde waitress exclaimed as she watched the three biggest men she had ever seen stuff more food down their mouths, "You boys were hungry!"

The bald one with tattoos looked up from his basket, "Excuse me, but what was this?"

The waitress looked down at the order ticket she had written, "Um, it was a thirty piece shrimp basket, made for three people…"

"Yes, I would love two more of these, right away, thank you," the tan man said as he grabbed five cheeseballs and threw them into his mouth.

The man's green eyed friend turned to her, "Yeah, I'd like another of these, too," he said, pointing to the empty plate that had once held a thirty ounces meant for two people, "and some of these… what are they called?"

"Curly fries?"

"Yes! Two extra large orders of curly fries, please!"

She turned to the last man in the group, this one significantly paler than the others and asked, "Well, what about you? Would you also enjoy an absolutely ridiculous amount of extra food?"

The man's mouth was full, as he was chomping down on his second half pound burger stuffed with all the extra condiments, so instead of speaking he pointed to the burger in his left hand and held up two fingers. The waitress nodded and wrote it down on the meal ticket, before looking back up with a forced smile, "Your food should be ready in about forty five minutes, would you fellas like something more to drink?"

The tattooed man held up his glass, "Whatever this was, it was exquisite!"

"Diet Coke?"

"Yes! We would all love more of this Diet Coke!" he exclaimed, overly excited about the prospect of more carbonated water with caramel coloring and artificial flavoring.

"Sure thing," she sighed as she wrote down the rest of their orders, "and how will you be paying for this?"

The pale, blue eyed man held up a finger and reached down into his coat pocket, pulling out an incredibly fat wad of hundred dollar bills. He swallowed the last bit of food in his mouth and asked, "How much will this be?"

"Uh, I can't give you an exact amount yet, but with what I have written down, I'd say a hundred and fifty…"

Ashley nearly gasped when the man threw down three hundred dollar bills, put the rest in his pocket, and handed her the three bills, saying, "Keep the change. You've been very patient."

Emile watched the girl walk off with their glasses as he stuffed more of the delicious curly fries into his mouth, "You know, we keep spending like this, we'll need more money soon."

Jun leaned in to the table, "I think I see a way of acquiring more. You see that table over there? The game they're playing on it? Well I've seen them betting money on it, not much, but I bet I could convince them to raise the stakes."

Daniel turned towards the table, observing the characters standing around it and the table itself. The men standing around it were all wearing suits and fedoras, apparently adhering to some sort of 1920's cultural fair dress code. They all held sticks approximately five feet long, and used the sticks to hit a white ball into various colored and striped balls, causing the colored or striped balls to fall into the various pockets lining the table. The waitress came back holding three large glasses of dark liquid, and Six decided to ask her about what she knew about the people there.

"Oh those guys are always in here. Actually made this bar pretty famous. The guy in the grey suit?" she said nodding towards the man lining up a shot on a black ball, "He once hustled Tony Stark out of eighty grand at that table. If you guys think you can play them, they'll go as high as you want."

Daniel looked back to Noble Three, "You sure about this Jun?"

Jun smiled, "Don't worry, Danny-Boy! I've been watching them for a while now, I think I got the rules down."

The pale Spartan shrugged and tossed the rest of the money to the tan Spartan, "Don't screw up!"

…

The three Spartans were walking down the sidewalk, Jun smiling cockily as he patted the check for twelve grand in his right pocket. Daniel and Emile shared a glance as they walked a few steps behind the tattooed super soldier. The pool players had thought they had an easy mark when it came to the big man, and were eager to take the Spartan's sixteen hundred dollars from him, only to find themselves beaten soundly. A flashy smile and a quick quip about beginner's luck had them back to the table, double or nothing. This pattern continued until the head of the little hustle squad decided to play the Spartan. A bet of twelve thousand dollars against Jun's six thousand soon had the super soldiers walking around with six thousand dollars cash, and a twelve thousand dollar check.

"I thought Nicko's eyes were going to pop out of their sockets when I jumped the eight ball off of the bumper and over his nine into the corner pocket!" Noble Three reminisced, "Or Paul's face when I hit every single ball in right off the break!"

"Yeah you sure showed them," Emile muttered as he maneuvered around a younger couple, "Now all we need is someone to knock you down a few pegs."

"I'll be sure to schedule you two in a sparring session," Six assured Four with a bleach white smile, one which Emile returned.

Of the Spartans of Noble Team, Noble Six may have the highest kill count, but Emile was the deadliest member of Noble Team in hand to hand and close quarters, easily one of the deadliest Spartans in close quarters of all time. Emile was in the possession of reaction times rating in the supernatural. All Spartan III's of Noble Team were exceptions to the rule of being inferior to the Spartan II's, but Emile was one of the few that surpassed most II's in one area, reflexes.

All Spartans, be they II's or III's had reflexes too fast to be measured, no human could keep up, and no measuring systems were accurate enough, but soon after being deployed it was obvious that Emile was on another level entirely. Whenever elites would move in to use their swords, they never seemed to get past raising them up to strike. Instead they fell dead before they could follow through, brutes always died before they had a chance to use their vicious blades mounted on every firearm, jackals and grunts all tried to run, but never could get away from the Spartan.

Every sparring session anyone else had against him always ended the same, with the opponent on the ground, groaning in pain. Even Jorge, the massive, indomitable, indestructible Jorge lost to Emile. Not all the time, the Spartan II was probably the strongest Spartan alive, but certainly most of the time. Strength was useless against someone you simply couldn't hit, or even see in some cases.

Jorge often compared the emerald eyed Spartan with another super soldier he once knew from training, Kelly 087. The massive Hungarian often teased Emile that as fast as he was, he would never be as fast as a girl, something Four never found quite as humorous.

What he did find humorous, was the idea of wiping the sparring mat with Jun. The bald Spartan was being cocky, and Noble Three had always rubbed Noble Four the wrong way. Emile may respect Jun's marksman ship, his ability on the battlefield, but there was nothing he loved more than knocking that tattooed jackass down a few pegs, though it was all in good fun.

Three continued walking, apparently not having heard their conversation, or trying not to show how much he was worried about being thrown around by the faster Spartan. Jun raised his hand to point at a building ahead, "There, Carter said we should get some clothes, that's probably a good place to start."

Daniel looked at the building, it appeared to be another mall, though this one was much larger than the one they had been in nearly eight hours earlier, "Sounds good. Jun, you should head over to the men's clothing store, see if you can find something big enough for Jorge. If you have any questions just type them into your phone, I'm sure Dot'll answer."

"Got it, Daniel," Jun confirmed as the Lieutenant peeled two thousand dollars from the wad of cash and handed it to him.

"Emile, we'll need large amounts of food. I'd recommend going into that store over there, next to the mall. Just ask your phone what we'll need, and I'm sure you'll be provided with the answer," Daniel ordered as he began peeling off another two thousand dollars.

Four grabbed the money from Six's hands and started for the store before stopping and turning back towards the Lieutenant, "And what'll you be doing?"

"I'll go grab the truck from the parking garage and get the last of what we need. When you're ready for pickup, call me."

Daniel crossed the street towards the tall concrete structure where he and the others had parked. While he was walking, he pulled out his phone and began typing, essentially asking Dot what he was supposed to get. The various crewmembers aboard the corvette had supplied Commander Carter with their requests, clothing, food, and Daniel's designated task, women's products.

Six frowned as he looked at the list provided for him. Most of them were obvious, soap, shampoo, deodorant, but the female crew members' list was far more substantial, containing items the Spartan had never heard of before. As he pulled the driver's side door open, Daniel's gut feeling told him that acquiring all of these items may prove to be problematic.

It was a short drive across the road and into the massive parking lot of the mall, but a much longer walk across the asphalt into the double glass doors of the building's entrance. Once inside, his presence went unnoticed, something that had yet to happen anywhere he or the others went. Even on the street people were often doing double takes when it came to the three seven foot tall men. The restaurant had been full of instances where mothers would scold their children for staring at them, where men at the bar would constantly glance at them from the corner of their eye, though that may have been because they were making quite a scene, eating several helpings of meals designed to feed entire families.

Daniel was almost… offended by the lack of attention, but squashed the unusual feeling under the logical conclusion that the less people noticed him, the easier his mission would be. He checked his phone again, looking down at a map of the store with a blue line indicating the path he should take to the first store.

When he reached the front of the store, he looked up at the store's name and sighed. Victoria's Secret didn't sound very promising, and the fact two teenage males were looking at him wide eyed as he entered didn't help.

"Dude, can you believe he did that?" one of them whispered.

"Oh man, he's whipped, I'd never let my girlfriend push me into going into one of those places," the other whispered back.

Despite the fact they were whispering, Daniel heard every word, and internally groaned. He was enjoying the fact no one was looking at him, but now it seemed assured that no matter what he did in this store, everyone would notice him.

Snapping out of his self pity he looked down at his phone, checking the list of supplies he would need to pick up. Bras, panties, various feminine hygiene products and… well that's unexpected. Catherine B320 had put in a request for a, a… thong. Blue eyes narrowed as Six pictured the female Spartan in a red lacy thong. Daniel could feel his heart beat faster, his face flushed, and his new pants seemed a little tight.

He shook his head, dismissing the thoughts and wondering where that reaction had come from. Sure by any standards Kat was a good looking woman, but that sort of thing had never mattered to Six, or any of the members of Noble Team before. Though, if Daniel thought about it, this was probably the first time since he had first been conscripted that he had time to think about anything but his mission.

Noble Six walked up to a rack of women's undergarments, expecting to simply select the appropriate sizes, grab two of each, and move on, but was overwhelmed by the selections available. Different colors, different designs, different materials, anything that could be different from one to another, was.

The pale Spartan stared at the rack for nearly thirty seconds before young redhead came up to him, "Can I help you sir?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, "I think I need some help."

"Well I'm impressed, I don't know how she got you down here, but your girlfriend must be one tough lady."

"My what?" Six said, turning to her with a confused look.

"Your girlfriend? Unless she's your wife, but…" the freckled girl looked down at his left hand, "I don't see a ring."

"Oh, a girlfriend," Daniel muttered, "I don't have one, or a wife. I'm just here picking up some items for a couple of women from my old unit."

At the mention of the Spartan's lack of girlfriend, the young redhead brightened up considerably, "Really," Six backed up a little at her predatory smile, "well, I could help you make a suggestion. Maybe model a few for you?"

Daniel was fairly confident that the freckled woman was about thirty seconds away from doing something drastic, "Well… I just need two of each of these sizes."

He showed her the list displayed on her phone, which she immediately took from his hands, taking the time to look at them, "You know what they say about men with big hands, and your hands have to be the biggest I've ever seen."

Six's face flushed, before snatching his phone back from the redhead and grabbing two of each size he needed. Each one he grabbed was out of something called the Mary Jane Watson collection, which apparently met the approval of the young woman if the hum of acknowledgement was anything to go by.

"Nice choice, I've always found those the most comfortable," she said, before turning back, "and really easy to take off…"

Continuing to blush, Daniel held up what he had, "I think I have everything I need, I'll just check out and leave."

"Sure thing," she continued, predatory smile never faltering. Six was getting the distinct impression that this must be how the Moa felt on Reach when it was being stalked by a pack of Silver Backed Raptors. The predatory birds, each approximately six feet in length bore an incredible resemblance to the extinct Earth animal Velociraptor, except for the silver feathers running down the male's backs. They also loved moa, usually hunting the flightless birds down in packs, and sometimes even consolidating packs to kill Guta.

The young woman typed away at the register, scanned the packages of women's underwear, and looked back up at him, eyes flashing dangerously at him, "That'll be one hundred and seventy six dollars and thirty eight cents, handsome."

Throwing down two one hundred dollar bills, Daniel picked up the bag the redhead had put the articles in. Doing everything within his power to not meet her gaze, Six took the receipt and his change and never looked back as he left the store. He put the cash in his pocket and looked down at his receipt, looking at the price of each item, but was drawn to something on the back of the piece of paper. He flipped it over and found ten digits scrawled on there, forming what he had come to recognize as a phone number, no doubt the freckled girl's number.

"Something interesting there, Daniel?" an accented voice interrupted his thoughts.

The Lieutenant looked up to see the tattooed visage of Noble Three standing there holding multiple bags that bulged with clothing. Each bag must have weighed several pounds, yet the Spartan's incredibly strong hands held them with ease, drawing looks from passerby's.

"She's incorrigible."

Jun tilted his head, "Who?"

Six jerked his head back towards the store he had just left where a young, freckled redhead was leaning over the counter staring wistfully at the pale Spartan's back.

Jun looked back to Daniel, "What'd she do?"

"Nothing, lets go."

The bald Spartan just raised an eyebrow as he walked behind his superior officer towards the exit, "Well did you get everything you needed?"

"Not exactly, but I'll be damned if I'm going back in there, maybe if the clerk were to be replaced by a rampaging brute, I'd at least feel safe then."

Jun peered at the receipt still in Daniel's hand, "Oh I don't know, I thought… Jenna, was cute. You should definitely call her back."

Six scowled and moved a little faster, leaving the mall at what most would consider a jog, though with his long strides, it only looked like a quick walk. Jun tossed the clothing into the truck's backseat before climbing in with them, taking Daniel's bag as well.

"Call Emile, ask if he's nearly done, and tell him we'll be there shortly."

Jun just smirked at the Lieutenant's attitude, still clearly disturbed by what the woman in the store had done to him, and pulled out his phone while inserting the Bluetooth device into his ear, "Emile… yeah it's Jun. How far along are you?... That's a lot of food… Yeah we've been getting stares from people all day long… Hot Pockets? Sounds interesting… Well we'll be there soon, Three out."

"Well?"

"He says he's checking out now, and he's got three carts full of food, however big a cart is, though Emile assures me it is a lot of food."

"It may not be enough if everyone on board has an appetite similar to ours a few hours ago," Six pointed out.

Jun chuckled, "Copy that, Six."

The tan truck pulled up next to the automatic glass doors of the grocery store just as they slid open to reveal a massive dark skinned man, and two young men, all three of them pushing carts filled with plastic bags.

Six rolled down the window just in time to hear Emile directing the two young men, "Yeah just throw em in the back there, I'm sure they'll be fine."

"Get everything, Emile?"

"Sure did, even the stuff Dot told me you didn't get. Something about a redhead?"

Daniel immediately began rolling the window back up, "Just hurry up and let's go, I'm sure they're waiting for us back home."

"Oh no," Jun said, leaning forward between the two front seats, "We still have one last piece of business."

Six looked over his shoulder at the Spartan, about to ask what business they had left here on the surface when Jun held out a check made out for one Jun Smith for twelve thousand dollars, and instead chose a different line of conversation, "I can't believe you told him your name was 'Smith' and I can hardly believe they believed you."

"I'll have to pick a new one, I'm sure, but as far as cashing this baby in, the Smith name'll work just fine."

Emile hopped into the passenger seat, "What's this about the Smith name?"

"Jun was just lamenting his choice of surname," Six explained.

Four nodded, "Smith was a dumb choice, can't believe they didn't see right through it, but I suppose if it'll work on the sleezebags from that bar, it'll probably work on the sleezebags at the bank."

"Well that's our last stop before heading back to the Vengeance."

"Well I didn't buy anything refrigerated, so we probably have a few hours before we have to get them back to the ship," Emile explained.

"I thought you bought a bunch of frozen pizzas and something called Hot Pockets?" Jun asked as he leaned back into the back seat.

"Yeah, but that shit's so full of preservatives MRE's would have a hell of a time keeping up."

Daniel's brow furrowed as he swiped through the GPS, finding a bank that was on their way out of the city, "The idea was that we wouldn't have to eat MRE's anymore."

"Well I saw a little kid buggin his mom, tryin to get her to buy a frozen pizza, so I'd have to imagine they're better than ration packs," Emile explained.

The truck made a left turn onto a busy street and started towards a bank located on the bottom floor of a thirty story building.

"Well I hope that kid has good taste," Jun said from his spot in the back seat.

"Here it is," Six said as he parked across the street from the bank, "Lets just get in, cash the check, and get out, understood?"

"And remember to use the crosswalk!" Jun chirped.

"Why?" Daniel asked.

"Cause that's the only legal way to cross the street."

Emile turned to look at the bald man, "Dude… we stole this truck."

"Did you just say 'dude'?" Jun asked.

"Heard some kid say it in the store earlier, apparently it is a way express a certain amount of surprise, or bewilderment…" Emile paused, "I think?"

Blue eyes met brown eyes, before turning back to green ones, "Let's go."

The three soon stood inside the lobby of the bank, each of them checking out the ritzy atmosphere. The floor was glossed marble that jutted up in various places to form marble columns. The ceiling was gold colored and formed various patterns, fitting in with the furniture lining the spacious room. Various men and women bustled through the lobby and through various nearby hallways. Most of the people present were wearing business suits, though there were a few in one line wearing casual clothing.

"Jun, go cash your check, Emile and I are gonna have a look around," Daniel ordered.

The bald Spartan just nodded and stepped into line, and only received one wide eyed stare, from a young teenager in a grey hoody and a pair of headphones wrapped around his neck, everyone else seemed determine not to notice anyone around them, as though looking at each other inside this building was taboo.

Six and Four walked over to a pair of elevators, just leaning against the wall, and doing essentially what they had been doing all day, observing those around them. Of course not many people chose to speak of truly relevant things in public, things Spartans would like to know like any possible encounters with aliens, the skills and abilities of the multiple superhumans, or even recent advancements in military technology. But all three of them knew that when they were sent on the scouting mission, and that sort of information wasn't really the goal of the mission. The goal, instead, was to learn about the culture here, to see if they could fit in, or at the very least, remain relatively unnoticed.

The people of New York seemed to be accustomed to the various differences people might have, and most chose not to give the Spartan's more than a quick glance. Some people stared, though that was usually in situations where their imposing size made itself quite obvious, such as Jun towering over the scrawny teenager.

"LT," Emile whispered as he caught sight of a figure near the door.

The dark skinned Spartan looked away, making it far less conspicuous for Six to look towards the door, where he immediately took notice of what Emile was talking about.

They entered in at a trickle, each dressed in baggy clothing, and each walking with a weight unnoticeable by most pedestrians. By the time Daniel turned his attention away from the group of men, lest he be spotted for his interest, he had been able to distinguish eight of them.

Jun left the line, pocketing a large sum of money, and turned to make his way back to his fellow Spartan's when he too caught sight of the group. The sniper's eyes picked two particular targets, ones that the others kept their distance from, these were the captains of the raid, and perhaps something more. One of them was wearing a hood over his head, keeping his face in shadow, but Three easily picked out the mask the man was wearing.

The marksman stepped up to the other two, "Two potential superhumans, and at least twelve armed gunman."

The demo-expert of the group took another glance before leaning back and feigning boredom, "Make that fifteen armed gunman, two potential superhumans, and one definite superhuman."

Six glanced out of the corner of his eye, spotting the one Emile had pointed out as a 'definite superhuman' immediately. At nearly seven and a half feet, the man towered over everyone near him, and would tower over the Spartans, and each step he made could be felt by the super soldiers' trained senses, meaning he was unusually heavy. Then there was the trench coat that could barely cover him, sliding apart in some places to reveal tough grey material underneath, and a five gallon hat that should never have fooled anyone rested atop his horned head.

"Might I suggest we take a bathroom break before hitting the road?" Jun asked politely. The other two nodded, and casually walked around the corner towards the men's restroom, which was thankfully empty.

As soon as they confirmed they were alone, Emile turned back, "What the hell are we going to do about this?"

"Nothing," Jun said, "This has nothing to do with us, we should leave through the back door before this begins."

Emile didn't like that answer, "Nothing to do with us? Those people out there might die, and we could prevent that! Isn't it our mission to protect humanity, whatever the cost?"

"Our humanity, I never signed up to protect two Earths," Jun shot back, "besides, three of those people back there are unknowns. We have no idea if guns can even hurt those guys.

Six looked back and forth between his two arguing subordinates. On one side was Jun, Noble Three, and perhaps the deadliest marksman alive. On the surface the man was friendly, chatty, and even a little annoying, but when it came to combat, the man lost any sense of emotion. His file was filled with warnings of dangerous emotional disconnect from his actions, but based on what Daniel had been able to figure out about the man, emotionally disconnecting himself from the mission was a survival technique. Jun never worried about the consequences of his actions because he could never deal with killing on the scale of war the same way Emile could.

Which brought the pale Spartan to the other side. Emile is a battle happy warrior, gung-ho in the middle of combat, but quiet, almost completely silent outside of a mission. This was a man who was in almost every way, the polar opposite of Jun. Where Three liked sniper rifles, Four loved shotguns. When Jun would laugh, Emile would stay silent. And when the sniper disconnected himself from his actions, the skull clad warrior would let his emotions drive his decisions.

Gunshots rang out from the lobby, followed by men and women screaming. Deep voiced shouting ensued, yelling for everyone to get down on the ground. The three Spartans could hear rapid footsteps, someone was running, but they were cut short by the sharp staccato of a nine millimeter fully automatic pistol and the thump of a dead body falling to the floor just outside the bathroom.

"Whatever we do, we need to do it, now!" Jun hissed.

Six let the world fade, centering his thoughts on everything he had seen, the layout of the building, the different details of the building from inside and out, the various people he had seen, the faces of each gunman he had seen before leaving…

Daniel reached into his pocket and thumbed his Bluetooth on as he slid it into his ear, "Commander, are you there?"

"Affirmative, Six, what's your situation?"

"We're in a hostile situation, but currently incognito. We're holed up in a bank on the north side of the city, approximately twenty armed gunman, one superhuman, and two potential superhumans."

"Affirmative, Six," Carter replied, "Dot, zero in on their location, Kat, get me eyes on."

The muffled replies of the others could be heard through the open comm. link Six had established just as Emile and Jun slide their earpieces in.

"I see what you were talking about, we've got thirteen gunmen in the lobby, and I think I see two of your superhumans. A big grey guy, looks kind of like a rhino?"

"That's one of them," Jun said as he stacked up behind Emile who was peeking out of the bathroom door down the hall.

"That's Aleksei Sytsevich, aka Rhino. Based on the dossier assembled by Dot in the limited time allotted, he has incredible strength, akin to a rampaging hunter. He tends to charge his enemies, but can easily be dodged, and he isn't very smart. He's fairly quick, at least when he's charging, but not nearly as fast as one of us on a dead sprint."

"Lieutenant!" Emile whispered, jerking his head towards the door, "We've got four gunmen armed with submachine guns and assault rifles headed this way."

"Stack up!" Six whispered harshly, "Commander, what about the other superhuman in the lobby?"

"The other is Peter Petruski, aka Trapster. Technically not superhuman, but he does employ a number of unique non-lethal weapons that could prove to be troublesome if you get hit. They appear to be some sort of incredibly quick setting glue fired from a pistol, or from a grenade."

"I see him," Emile whispered as he peeked out of the door, "He's wearing two bandoliers over each shoulder, both of em full of those sticky nades."

"One shot to one of those ought to leave him in a bind," Jun said.

"Three, if you ever say anything like that again, I will kill you, have Kat resurrect you. While she's resurrecting you, I will take classes to learn how to cook so when your alive again I can cut off your balls, bake them into a nice chocolate suflet with cream cheese topping, feed them to you in said suflet, then kill you again," Four threatened softly, "Understood?"

Jun didn't respond, so Six took the opportunity to ask him something, "I thought you were against interfering?"

"I am," he responded calmly, "It's not our problem, but if we're going to get out of here, we need to go through this group, and we need to do it efficiently."

Emile snorted quietly, "These people need our help!"

"Records show a local superhuman known as Spider-Man usually deals with these scenarios," Carter said, "Though based on what we're seeing up here, any attempt to get in will result in the deaths of the hostages."

"What about coming from the inside?"

"If you can get the surprise on them, Six, then you'll easily take out the gunmen before they get a chance to kill any hostages, though I am showing three more gunmen moving through the back of the bank, each with hostages, and another super criminal."

"How many of these guys are there?" Emile asked rhetorically, though he did get an answer from Jun.

"Three, apparently…"

"Jun, shut the fuck up."

"Why ask if you didn't want an answer?"

"I will fucking bleed you out through your abdominal aorta, keep you alive through all of it, then replace your blood with sulfuric acid…"

"Lock it down," Six whispered harshly, "Commander, what are your thoughts on the situation? Any orders as to what we should do?"

There was a pause, "I'm not on the ground, Lieutenant, this is up to you. What do you think?"

…

"Emile, draw one of the gunman's attention, we'll commandeer his weapons, and execute the others in the hall, then we'll get out of here."

"This is a mistake, Six," Four warned.

"No, he's keeping the mission at the front of his mind," Jun rebuked, "not his conscience, something you could use more practice in."

Emile silently snarled as he moved to the side of the door and waited for the other two to move into the stalls where they'd be hidden from anyone entering. He knocked on the door ever so slightly, and quickly grabbed someone's attention.

"Murphy!" a scratchy voice called out, "Go check out the bathrooms!"

"Sure," a voice that was almost uncomfortably close responded.

From this distance, Emile could easily hear the heavy footsteps approach across the tile floor. The door swung open, the actual door part obstructing the gunman's view from the green eyed Spartan on the other side. The man stepped through fully, allowing the door to close and Emile to strike.

Contrary to most action movies, there was no noise, very little movement, and it was over in one strike. Emile's fist contacted the back of the man's skull and shattered it, sending fragments of bone slicing through the brain matter, dropping the man like a sack of potatoes, but not before the Spartan could slip the assault rifle from his hands so it wouldn't clatter on the ground.

Jun and Daniel moved over from the stalls, Jun leaning down and stripping the dead man of his weapons and ammunition. Three quickly pulled a submachine gun from a sling around the man's waist. None of the Spartan's recognized the model, but that was understandable considering the fact that by their standards the weapon was over four hundred years old. That said, the weapon did resemble an M7 submachine gun, but the ammunition was slotted inside the pistol grip and the stock seemed able to retract and extend.

"Trade you," Jun said as he held up the submachine gun up to Emile, knowing that the vicious Spartan wouldn't pass up on a close quarters weapon.

Jun stood up and looked down the ACOG sight attached to the weapon, getting used to the red reticule in the center of the scope, then shifted his attention to the grenade launcher attached to the bottom of the weapon, admiring the seamless way it seemed to attach into the rail and how it felt similar to an MA37 in weight, but more like a BR55 in the way it handled. He ejected the clip, taking a look at the ammunition, and frowned. 5.56 millimeter rounds, not nearly the same firepower as a 7.62, and the stock seemed a little clumsy to him, but this rifle would undoubtedly work well in the master marksman's hands.

Emile strapped the holster from the dead man's thigh onto his own and fit his new SMG there. Jun slung the strap of the assault rifle over his shoulder and held it diagonally across his chest, barrel pointed downwards. Six pulled his M6 SOCOM from his shoulder holster and stepped up to the door.

"Don't use your new weapons yet," Daniel warned, "We need to do this quietly, use those only if we need the added firepower. Jun," he grabbed the sniper's attention, "Emile and I will clear the hallway of gunmen, two to the chest one to the head. I want you to take care of Petruski, one to the bandolier."

Emile looked down at the dead man on the floor and plucked a bandana from the man's back pocket, "We should probably cover our face, make sure no one gets a clear ID on us."

The Spartan wrapped the cloth around his head, just above the nose, revealing only the upper half of his head. Jun nodded and reached down, snatching the black scarf that no doubt served as a dust mask should the robbers have to use explosives and wrapped the cloth around his head, covering himself from neck to bald scalp leaving only his eyes exposed. Six simply reached down and pulled the ski mask off the dead man's head, which was surprisingly clean considering the open wound on the back of the man's skull, and slid it on.

Two nods in confirmation and Six stood in front of the door, hand up and ready to breach when a voice cut through the quiet hallway, "Murphy! You done in there?"

The gunman received his answer in the form of three 12.7 millimeter rounds. One penetrated the body armor over his left lung with ease, another cored the man's heart, and the final one exploded out the back of the man's head. Another man dropped to the floor, having never had the chance to turn around at the sound of his comrade's body hitting the floor.

Emile moved next, fluidly entering a firing stance to the Lieutenant's left and easily picking off the two armed men who were just turning with one to the left lung, one to the heart, and one in the head, leaving a clear path for the final Spartan to put a shot on a very surprised Peter Petruski at the far end of the hallway, past the turn off for the lobby.

The bald Spartan squeezed the trigger, the internal pin struck the primer, sparking the gunpowder and launching a 12.7 millimeter down the barrel at supersonic speeds. Normally the shot would echo through the building as though someone had smashed two cast iron frying pans together, but as the high explosive round left the barrel it passed through a chamber that bled off the gasses that had been accelerating it and absorbed the shockwave of the sonic boom.

In short, the round travelling at over four hundred and fifty meters per second left the pistol with only the slightest click of the slide moving to chamber another round, and shot forth into the rising hand of Trapster, easily penetrating the metallic glue gun in his hand. The round crumpled as it passed through the first metal layer, slid through the glue inside the weapon, and exploded when it hit the other end. In less than a millisecond, Petruski's weapon exploded, showering him with his own specialized glue which hardened as soon as it made contact. The hose connected to the gun continued to spray, making Trapster's situation worse by the second. Soon, the criminal's entire body was covered in hardened glue, leaving only the man's face exposed.

Jun raised an eyebrow, looked to the other two, and said, "That's it?"

"HELP!" Trapster suddenly shouted from his spot stuck inside the glue, "HELP!"

"I fucking hate you," Emile said quietly, "I really, fucking, hate you."

The comm. line crackled, "Heads up Spartans, tangos headed your way!"

"We should go," Jun warned, "Now."

"Fuck that! Those hostages are as good as dead if we don't do something!"

"The LT's made up his mind, Four."

Six ended the argument between his two subordinates, "Your right, I have. Move up and engage."

Jun sighed, "Yes sir," and pulled up his new assault rifle just as Emile shed his jacket and pulled out his submachine gun.

Heavy footsteps announced the arrival of the hostiles, being led by a massive grey, horned, monster of a man, "What the hell is going on here?!"

"This…"

BOOM!

Jun pushed the slide on the forty millimeter grenade launcher forward, letting the spent shell drop, and slapped another one in. Six slid forward, grabbing the assault rifle from the dead mercenary on the ground, and raised the matte black weapon up to his shoulder and found one of the four gunmen in his holographic sight. A sharp burst dropped the man, and another burst dropped another one, and another.

While Jun and Daniel took care of the mercenaries, Emile charged the soot covered Rhino.

"I'll crush you like a bug!"

Emile's only response was to fire his SMG in one hand, and his SOCOM in the other, peppering the giant grey armor of Aleksei Sytsevich with lead. None of the rounds were able to penetrate the incredibly strong armor, but each one felt like an adult punching him with all their strength, which only served to enhance the brute's rage.

The armored titan and the enhanced super soldier were only fifteen feet apart when Rhino lowered his head, intent on piercing the Spartan with his horns, and leapt the last of the gap. Unfortunately for the former mobster, Emile was far too quick for the blow to ever land, and slid underneath the behemoth in midair and lashed out with his left foot, kicking Rhino's right leg out from its position, meaning the monster had only one foot to land on, and for a fifteen hundred pound behemoth, that was quite difficult.

Aleksei slammed into the ground, face first, and rolled into a marble column, smashing it with his tremendous bulk.

"Three, you and I will rescue the hostages and take care of the last super criminal," Daniel ordered as he rose to his feet, "Four, I want this guy dead!"

"Copy that, Six!" Emile said as he stripped another dead merc of his SMG and raising next to his other one. The shots rang out simultaneously, creating a maelstrom of lead striking Sytsevich.

Rhino shook the debris off of him, stumbling to his feet as he felt the nine millimeter rounds pepper his hide like armor. Grabbing a piece of the rubble, the behemoth turned and threw it at the source of the bullets.

Emile easily sidestepped the chunk of marble, all the while keeping the two barrels pointed directly at the beast, watching the bullets impact the armor only to bounce off as the monster turned towards him, and lowered his head.

"RAAAAGH!"

Emile was no where near as strong as the Russian mobster, but he was easily strong enough to lift him, especially when so much of his weight was shifted forwards. Noble Four planted both palms against the criminal's torso and heaved, throwing the massive man down the hall where he slammed into a water fountain, ripping the metal casing off and spraying the hallway with water.

"Your really starting to piss me off!"

Rhino closed the gap, choosing to go for a haymaker rather than his usual charge, which Emile simply ducked, dropped both submachine guns, and pulled out his kukri from his beltline. Truthfully, Four had no idea if the monomolecular knife would penetrate the armor, considering armor piercing high explosive rounds couldn't do it, but despite his worries, the knife dug in, slicing through the hide like armor and piercing the skin underneath.

"You made me, the Rhino, bleed!" Aleksei screamed out in rage, "I'll kill you!"

Emile's comm. piece crackled to life as he ducked under a swing, "Does he ever shut up? We can hear him from here."

…

Six backhanded a merc that had tried to flank him by sneaking around the counter, and broke his neck, sending the lifeless body flying off into a nearby marble wall. Daniel focused back on his rifle, laying down suppressing fire as Jun continued to pick off the mercenaries.

"Your hardly one to talk, Three," the Lieutenant chided as he placed a two round burst into the head of yet another gunman. The mercenaries were well outfitted, each carrying military firearms, assault rifles, submachine guns, grenade launchers, and body armor, thick body armor. That's why both Noble Six and Three were using headshots, double tapping just to make sure, and also why none of the criminals were recognizable.

"Just saying, Four could keep it down over there," the sniper replied as he placed one shot in each eye of a mercenary who attempted to use a middle aged woman in a business suit as a human shield. The woman collapsed to the floor in sobbing heap next to an old man as the merc fell backwards, missing the back half of his skull.

"Got two tangos, making a break for the doors," Jun spoke up, "permission to engage?"

"Kill them," Daniel confirmed. Four shots rang out and the glass doors were sprayed with blood, "Lets move towards the vault, the Commander said the last of them were headed in that direction."

"Do we know who the last superhuman was?"

"No, but I…"

The Lieutenant was cut off by a loud crash and a roar of rage and pain. Rhino, with Emile riding on his back, had just run into a solid wall that cut the rest of the hallway off from the lobby, and was stumbling into the spacious room, but that wasn't the source of the pain in Aleksei's voice. The pain was no doubt coming from the twelve inch titanium kukri that was buried in his right shoulder.

"Scratch that last order, Three," Six yelled over the thrashing of Rhino, "Get the civvies out of here, I'll deal with the rest of the mercs!"

"Copy that, LT!" Jun replied as he fired rounds into the chest of the armored behemoth, "Lets Go! Get out of here! Come ON!"

Sytsevich charged another wall, intent on knocking the super soldier clinging to his back off, but before the man's long horns made contact with the wall, Emile leapt from the monster's back in a backflip, and landed behind the counter.

Rhino turned around from the wall he had just smashed and looked for his enemy amongst the fleeing people, only to find a cash register slam into his face from across the lobby.

He roared again in anger, and prepared to charge, but the devastating kukri cut through his hide like armor and dug deep into his pectoral muscle followed by a four hundred pound super soldier slamming into him knocking him back against the wall where he was subjected to more vicious cuts and stabs from the deadly blade and its ruthless wielder.

Finally, Rhino landed his first hit of the fight, managing to grab hold of Emile and toss him across the room. Any normal human being, hell, anyone other than a Spartan probably would have been crushed by the force of being slammed into a marble pillar, but Noble Four simply twisted in midair and planted both feet against the pillar, and launched right back at the beast of a man.

"ACK!" Aleksei was shoved back into the wall and felt the blade dig into his collar bone. Gritting his teeth, Sytsevich managed to grab a hold of the Spartan, but instead of flinging him away like last time, Rhino grabbed one of the super soldier's legs and slammed him into the ground.

Emile felt pain bloom along his back, his leg that had been grabbed, and his head as his body shattered the thin layer of marble lining the floor, the wind blasted from his lungs, and his vision danced with stars. Thankfully, bones lined with tungsten carbide didn't break so easily, nor did muscle more than twice as dense and far thicker than most human beings did not bruise or tear under the stress. But all of those enhancements would be of little use as Rhino lifted his foot, ready to crush the Spartan.

Thankfully, Emile was not alone in his fight, as forty millimeter grenade slammed into the Russian mobster's chest, shoving him back yet again into the wall.

Four leapt to his feet and rolled to the side as Rhino came back and slammed his fist into the ground where Emile had been. 5.56 rounds peppered his damaged armor, further enraging the monster.

"Your all gonna pay for this!" Aleksei shouted as Jun slapped another magazine into his rifle, "This was all set! Spider-Man would come, he would get all of those people killed! It was going to break him! And you've RUINED IT!"

Rhino charged the Spartan standing in front of the bank's doors, intent on smashing the new nuisance like a bug. Just before he reached the soldier, however, the Spartan he had thought was down made his presence known.

Emile grabbed the kukri still stuck in the flesh just above Rhino's collar bone, and pulled. The blade cut through the thick armor as though it was simply paper, and left a great red trail across the beastly man's neck.

Jun rolled to the side and Emile simply dropped from the huge criminal's back as the massive man took his final steps at full speed. The man's massive bulk easily smashed through the glass doors and his momentum carried him out onto the sidewalk which was currently being cleared by police officers who had only just arrived.

Three steps was all the further Rhino made it before dropping to the cement and sliding along the ground where he finally came to a rest in the middle of the street where a pool of blood formed around him.

Jun cocked his head, "That was easy."

Emile glared at the marksman who immediately held his hands up in surrender, "I know, I know, I'll shut up."

Three gunshots grabbed the two Spartans' attention. The shots echoed through the lobby, but both super soldiers could tell where they were coming from.

"C'mon Three, let's go get the LT and get the hell out of here."

…

Herman Schultz, aka Shocker, swung the vault door wide open after he had used his specialized gauntlets to shatter the internal locking mechanisms. He pushed the three mercs into the vault, each one carrying two duffle bags capable of holding hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"Lets hurry it up, from the sounds outside I'd guess that Spider-Man has made his move," Shocker told the henchmen before turning back to the last gunman who was pointing his twelve gauge sawed off shotgun at a group of four people, "Get two of them ready to move, we'll be leaving s-…"

The mercenary's head warped under the force of two hollow point rounds. The man dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes next to the four hostages and was surrounded in a pool of his own grey matter and blood.

Schultz looked up from the body to the door way to see massive man holding a smoking barrel, "Surrender, or don't, but your friends tried that last option and I believe they're all dead."

Shocker was stunned for a second, but soon aimed one of his deadly vibrating gauntlets at the man and fired a concentrated blast of sonic vibrations at the super soldier. The wave of deadly vibrations was barely visible, warping the air similar to the way heat waves on pavement create visible phenomena, but it was far slower than a bullet. Still, the fact the shockwave never hit the Spartan was nearly inconceivable.

The rifle raised to find Schultz in the holographic sight, and let loose a burst. The bullets traveled at super sonic speeds, ready to tear through flesh and bone, only to smash into a condensed layer of air.

Herman watched the hollow point rounds burst as they hit the sonic shield his gauntlets produced. The bullets crumpled and lost their kinetic energy, sending warped pieces of lead pelting Schultz with energy akin to an airsoft gun, which his suit easily protected him from.

Six kept firing, hoping to break through the sonic barrier, but the rifle's magazine ran out before that happened. The Spartan tossed the rifle butt first at the criminal, but the gun was caught by a sonic wave where it was crushed under the extreme pressure.

Schultz kept his distance from his physically superior opponent, aware that he now had the advantage, and continued firing sonic blasts. Unfortunately for the criminal, none of the blasts ever managed to find their mark as the super soldier continued to duck and weave between the shockwaves.

Six continued to throw random objects at the career criminal, in hopes one would land or distract him long enough for the Spartan to get close and finish him off. The situation took a dire turn for the worse when the three mercenaries who had been loading up cash in duffle bags made an appearance.

The first mercenary exited the vault holding a nine millimeter handgun, and attempted to find the soldier. What he found was a massive pale hand wrapping around his wrists, snapping the bones and wrenching the weapon from his hands. Six pulled the handgun up and fired two rounds into each of the man's eyes and leapt to the side as Shocker sent a sonic blast into the vault, hoping to kill the Spartan.

Instead of killing the soldier, however, the blast hit the two surviving mercenaries, liquefying their internal organs and crushing their bones.

Schultz recoiled from the sight of the liquefied human beings slosh down onto the floor, a crucial mistake, and one Daniel took immediate advantage of.

A pale fist swung in towards Shocker's head, connecting with the criminal's skull just above his left eye, but the material making the suit was too thick, and too strong for one punch to be a killing blow. As Schultz lay on the floor, dazed and undoubtedly hurting, Six grabbed a the twelve gauge shotgun from the body near where the hostages were still sitting, pointed it down, and pulled the trigger, shredding Shocker's right lung, pump and pull, Shocker's heart was a bloody pulp, pump and one final pull, the man's head disappeared in a bloody explosion.

"You killed all of them," one of the hostages, a young woman, said in disbelief.

Six turned his blue eyes towards the hostages in curiosity, "So?"

"What kind of hero kills?" she asked, much to the Spartan's confusion.

Six turned away from the hostages and leaned down to turn over the man who's wrists he had snapped and began stripping the body of ammunition and grenades, just in case. He pulled a few magazines for the man's assault rifle and stuffed them into the inner pockets of his jacket as he pulled the sand colored rifle up, letting the strap hang freely. He looked down the rail of the weapon, checking the iron sights for any flaws or damage, then moved the foregrip to a comfortable position, and finally slid the clip from its spot and thumbed down on the top bullet, checking to see how many rounds were currently in the magazine.

As he slammed the full magazine back into the rifle, Six could hear the soft footfalls of experienced infiltrators approaching, "Three, Four, we're clear in here."

Despite the Lieutenant's assurances that the room was clear of hostiles, Emile still entered holding two submachine guns up and ready to fire, sweeping the right side of the room, while Jun came next, holding his rifle steady as he swept the left side of the room, scanning the hostages, but ultimately deciding against painting the room with their brains.

Emile exited the vault after performing a sweep and walked up to Schultz's body, "Damn LT, overkill much?"

Jun looked at the body, "What? Two to the chest, one to the head."

"That generally doesn't apply to buckshot," Four shot back.

"Enough chatter," Six ordered before turning to the civilians, "Get out of here, I assume all hostiles are down?"

Jun nodded, "All tangos have been eliminated and all noncombatants have been evacuated from this floor… except for these ones of course."

"Good," Daniel nodded as he watched the civilians rush out of the room, apparently in a hurry to be away from the dangerous men. He then turned his attention to a ruffled Emile, "Status, Four?"

"Green, sir," Emile replied without any hesitation.

His green shirt was torn in some places, and just a little bit of blood leaked through a few open cuts, and there were a few bruises forming along his face from when he was riding Rhino like a bucking bronco, but other than those superficial scrapes, he wasn't displaying any serious injury.

Jun tilted his head, "Sounds like the police have fully surrounded the building, we should go."

"This time," Emile said, "I got no objections."

The three walked out into the lobby, all the while Six was formulating an escape plan, "We'll head up to the roof, and split up, make your way across the rooftops until your positive no one will notice you and then we'll meet back at the truck."

"Hopefully no one decides to steal our stuff," Jun pointed out.

Emile suddenly thrust his hand out, stopping the other two and forcing them down behind cover, "We've got unknowns in the lobby…"

…

Approximately twenty minutes ago a red and blue figure was swinging through New York's skyscrapers. The colorful figure displayed impressive acrobatic skills as he swung from building to building on what appeared to be thick spider webbing.

Peter Parker let himself relax as he swung past Times Square, passing barely ten feet above the taxis and cars below, and soared through the air far above the roofs of the buildings below, and finally shot a piece of web into a nearby construction crane keeping the wall crawler from smashing into the pavement.

Movement out of the corner of his eye caught the super powered twenty something's attention. A streak of fire across the sky was approaching, rapidly. Normally a fireball following an erratic pattern before setting a course directly for one's self would be cause for worry, but Peter was surprisingly unconcerned.

"Hey Johnny!"

The fireball pulled up next to the wall crawler and flew along next to him as he swung through the New York buildings, "Hey Pete! Where ya headed?"

"Oh I was just thinking of swinging over to the Empire State building, maybe just hanging out for a while," Spider-Man answered Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch.

The man on fire nodded as he flew through the streets of Manhattan, "It does seem quiet today," he trailed off and a sly look came over his burning face, "Will Carol be meeting you there?"

Peter nearly missed his next mark, "Uh, what?"

"You know…" Johnny smirked, "Ms. Marvel? You two have been hanging out quite a bit ever since you and Mary Jane decided to break it off."

"Nonsense," Spider-Man said, "It's a rough time, and she's a valued friend."

"I didn't say she was anything else," the Human Torch pointed out.

The wall crawler paused, "That's gotta be the first time you outsmarted anyone."

"So I'm right?"

"Shut up."

Suddenly the noise of police sirens caught their attention down below. A line of fifteen police vehicles made a violent right turn down onto a busy four lane street and accelerated dangerously.

Spider-Man sighed, "So much for a peaceful day…"

"A day you could have spent with Carol!" Storm said with a special emphasis on the heroine's name.

"Shut up and let's go!"

The two followed the police cars to bank at the base of thirty story building that stood only a few stories taller than those around it. The police had already sectioned off the side of the building the bank was located, and were working to section off the others, to completely surround the building.

"Another bank robbery?" Storm asked, "On a Sunday? These guys have no class!"

"No kidding! Don't they know I was planning on eating a nice Sunday supper with Aunt May?"

"Was Danvers going to be there?"

"Oh stop already- WHOA!"

Spider-Man was cut off in the middle of his friendly chiding as the glass doors leading to the bank exploded, and a familiar form stumbled out.

"Rhino!" Peter shouted, and raised his hand from his perch to fire a web off at the super criminal, but was stopped by his friend.

"Dude, wait," the Fantastic Four member said, "Look…"

Rhino barely made it past the sidewalk and anyone looking on could see that something was seriously wrong with the former mobster. A trail of red followed the massive man as he continued to take slower and increasingly unsteady steps until he finally fell, crushing the asphalt below him and digging a channel in the street with his momentum. As the red liquid continued to form a pool around the beast of a man, the two heroes finally realized what it was.

"Holy shit," Storm breathed, "is he?"

Spider-Man shook his head, "I don't know, but I plan on finding out!"

Swinging down to the massive man, Peter dropped to his feet with unnatural grace and stepped closer to the motionless body. Aleksei wasn't breathing, he wasn't twitching, and the pool of blood was growing and the blood was getting darker. There was no doubt in his mind that his former enemy was dead, and the thought chilled him to the bone.

Seeking some form of closure, Spider-Man turned the body over, and revealed a gruesome gash across the mobster's neck. Blood no longer poured out of the wound, likely because it was already all over the road.

"Whoa," a voice whispered from behind the arachnid powered hero, "What could have done that to the Rhino?"

"I-I don't know," Peter admitted, "Adamantium, vibranium, I suppose if you were to sharpen titanium down to a razor's edge it could cut through, but you'd have to be pretty strong to do it."

Three gunshots echoed from within the building, causing both heroes to snap their attention to the bank, and the gruesome spectacle within. Bodies were relatively undamaged, but almost every mercenaries' head was missing, or at least having massive holes ripped through them.

Loud retching from behind let Peter know that the Human Torch was just as disturbed by the sight before them as he was. There were footprints in the blood, but Spider-Man was no tracker. It was, however, that the majority of the footprints were leading out of the door and onto the street.

A tingling sensation traveled along the young man's head, a sixth sense he had come to trust. This Spider-Sense, as he called it, alerted him to danger before it happened, usually giving him enough time to react, but this attack was so fast, so incredibly, impossibly quick, that the tingling sensation triggered only twelve full milliseconds before two large open hands slapped both sides of his head.

The blow's effect was immediate as bells rung inside Peter's head and his vision filled with stars. As he stumbled after the very precise hit, he managed to see a large figure move up behind the still vomiting Torch and break a piece of wooden cabinet door over his head, knocking the hero to the floor. A deep, strong voice penetrated Spider-Man's world of haze and confusion, though the words were unintelligible.

Peter's vision and hearing began to return, and he saw two figures dash towards the elevators. He attempted to follow them, but stumbled to the ground in a dizzying rush. By the time he finally reached his feet with his full bearings, the elevator doors had shut, and the needle indicated they had already reached the twentieth floor. Behind him, Johnny also reached his feet, shook his head, and let out a single statement.

"Fuck that hurt!"

"They're headed towards the roof!" Spider-Man said, ignoring his comrade's pain, his own ears were still ringing and his vision was still hazy, "Come on, we have to stop them!"

"Flame On!" Johnny said as his body burst into flames, "Let's do this."

Both heroes shot out of the destroyed glass doors, the Human Torch bursting upwards in a trail of plasma, Spider-Man firing a thick strand of webbing up to roof of the building and launching himself upwards with a strong tug on the elastic string.

Neither bothered to stick around in the broken lobby as a third figure emerged from behind the wrecked counter. Blue eyes surrounded by a pale face looked around the empty room before the Spartan moved on, slipping through the building, out onto the street, and past the police line without being noticed. Soon a tall figure stepped into a large tan truck, asked the officers on the scene if he could go, and was soon driving away.

"Well that was easy," Six mumbled to himself before pushing his Bluetooth back in, "Three, Four, how's it going up there?"

…

Emile could normally push seventy kilometers per hour in his MJOLNIR, and even out of it he had been known to get up to fifty, but as his legs bent and sprung, the Spartan III Commando must have been close to sixty kilometers an hour, it certainly felt like it when he hit the roof of the adjacent building.

The fireball chasing him swerved, pulled alongside the incredibly fast Spartan, and yelled, "Stop where you are! Or don't, I really want to get some payback for the welt on my head!"

Four ripped a metal plate off of a nearby air-conditioning unit as he ran, and spun it like a frisbee at the man on fire.

"Whoa!" the Human Torch yelled as he narrowly dodged the spinning piece of metal, "That's it!"

Fireballs hit the ground around the Spartan as he weaved between the rooftop machinery, the pebbles that layered the rooftop melted and fused together as each ball of plasma hit them, leaving a trail of bubbling rock wherever Emile went.

"I don't want to hit you with one of these," Storm warned, "That would be really nasty for both of us! So I suggest you- OOF!"

As the Human Torch had been speaking he had flown closer to Spartan, a mistake to be sure. Various cast iron pipes came out of the building they were on, exhaust lines, and were easily removed if one was as strong as a surgically enhanced super soldier.

Emile dropped the melted iron pipe and sprinted to the edge of the roof and jumped, leaving behind a battered and angry member of the Fantastic Four.

He hit the rocky surface of another building after his leap and took the time he spent sprinting across the rooftop to try and get a bearing on Jun, "Three, you there?"

…

Noble Three poured disturbingly accurate assault rifle fire at the red and blue figure chasing him with only one hand while the other held his phone. Jun didn't even bother looking at where he was shooting, knowing that each shot was hitting exactly what he wanted it to hit, besides, he needed more concentration to try and reconnect his Bluetooth with his cell phone than to keep some lunatic dressed as a spider at bay.

"Three, you there?"

Jun smirked and slipped his phone back into his pocket, "Affirmative Four, how you doing with the lightbulb?"

"Annoying as fuck, but he ain't hard to evade," Emile said with a level of indifference, "but I get the feeling that he can keep this up all day."

"Funny, I'm getting the same feeling from my guy," Three said as he casually stepped to the side to avoid the strand of webbing coming from behind him. The black assault rifle in his hand barked in response, none of the bullets really ever in any danger of striking the nimble figure, though he dodged anyway, "There a reason we don't just kill these guys?"

"Because they aren't murderers or thieves, in fact, they aren't a threat to anyone who isn't a murderer or a thief," a new voice entered the fray.

"Nice of you to join us, Kat," the bald Spartan said with a smirk that was still hidden by the scarf wrapped around his head.

Emile grunted over the comm. line, "Now that you're here, how bout you give us a little something on these guys who're chasing us?"

"Only if you ask nicely, Noble Four," Kat's accented voice teased.

Emile huffed with exertion before responding, "Please?"

"Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch, guess which one he is?" Kat asked rhetorically before continuing, "Result of accident with cosmic radiation, yada yada yada, boring boring boring, ah, his weakness is water. More specifically, a lot of water, I'd recommend the rain collector two buildings to the east."

"What about my guy?" Jun asked as he sidestepped another piece of webbing before responding with gunfire.

"Spider-Man, hold on, his file's a little more encrypted," Kat explained, "I hacked into some organization called SHIELD to get a little more information than Dot could give us…"

Jun waited patiently, let the empty magazine drop, and slid another one in.

"Got it, wow, these encryption protocols are a joke," Noble Two said almost as if she were complaining, "His real name is Peter Parker, bit by a radioactive spider and as a result he can stick to walls like a spider, climb like a spider, has the proportional strength of a spider, and has some sort of sixth sense where he can sense danger before it happens."

"Didn't seem to be working earlier when Emile used his head as a bongo drum," Jun remarked.

"There have been instances where the danger was simply too fast for his 'spider-sense' to kick in, Four may have just been too fast. Anyway, the webbing he's shooting at you will run out, and when it does he'll have to come in close, take him out then, but preferably without killing him."

"Got it."

Suddenly a red blur swung past the Spartan, taking with it his earpiece.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you it's impolite to talk on the phone in public?"

Jun raised a hidden eyebrow before firing a few rounds he knew Spider-Man would dodge, "Nah, never came up much in training."

"Are you military?" the young hero asked as he swung across the roof using the billboard, "Or SHIELD? Why did you kill all those people?"

"Yes, no, and because they were a threat, and just for the record, I was against helping in that bank."

"Why did you have to kill them, though?" Peter asked, "And why were you against helping?"

"Didn't anyone tell you it's impolite to ask too many questions?"

"I'm serious! Why did you kill every single one of them?!"

Jun smirked and shook his head, "If you have to ask that question, then you don't, nor ever will understand."

Frustrated, the young hero pointed both of his web shooters not at the Spartan, but to both sides. He pulled the webbing taut, either ignorant of, or unconcerned by the super soldier's indifference to his current predicament, and let the elastic webbing launch him forward feet first.

A tingling sensation crawled along Peter's scalp halfway there, "Oh shit…"

Two massive hands wrapped around Spider-Man's ankles and transferred the hero's momentum into a spinning motion, one that ended with Peter's head slamming into the metal mass of an air-conditioning unit.

The young man's enhanced durability clung to consciousness, but it simply could not clear the haze fast enough. A massive dark figure raised an object, and brought it down onto his head with tremendous force, and finally all Peter could see was darkness.

…

Emile fired his SOCOM into the air behind him, though the bullets melted mere nano-seconds before they could strike their target. Noble Four dropped to a slide, avoiding several fireballs as they passed harmlessly over his head. He jumped to his feet and continued his sprint across the rooftop approaching his target, a massive rain collector.

The only problem with this objective was its location, on the other side of massive six lane highway. Fortunately a solution was nearby, though any sane person probably wouldn't consider a half inch steel cord hanging from a forty foot tall crane a viable solution.

The cord was hanging nearly ten meters away from the edge of the roof, a gap that was easily crossed with his speed, though Emile purposely dropped, making sure the cord would be long enough for him to cross the street.

At the apex of his swing, Four let go, vaulting over the busy street. In midair, the Spartan twisted his body and pulled the SMG from its thigh holster. Trailing behind him was Johnny Storm, who was rather intent on some payback not only for the growing welt on the back of his head, but the bruised ribs the super soldier had given him with an iron pipe.

Both the SOCOM and the SMG opened up, spraying lead directly into the high intensity plasma field that surrounded the Human Torch, giving him his distinctive look. As the bullets neared, each one merely vaporized, though the explosive rounds from the SOCOM held a special surprise.

POP!

POP!

POP!

Each explosion felt like getting hit with a softball thrown by a major league pitcher, and the Human Torch may be a powerful superhuman, but he was still relatively human. throwing his hands up in defense, Johnny pulled up to avoid the explosive rounds, allowing the Spartan to twist around and land facing forwards on the tall building.

Emile slid along the pea gravel of the next rooftop, digging a trench through the pebbles as he went. Four took cover behind an air duct as he checked his back pockets for another clip, only to pat down empty pockets.

"Shit," he muttered as he peeked over the reflective metal, getting a bead on his fiery adversary.

Mr. Storm was pulling around the building, building up a sizable fireball and getting ready to fling it down on the rooftop. Normally Johnny would do everything he could to talk a guy like this down, but this time he was making an exception. Rarely had the Human Torch ever been so humiliated and battered, especially by someone who wasn't even very powerful.

Spotting the man poking his head out from behind the chrome plated air duct, the Human Torch let the fireball go, hoping to strike the ground near the man and toss him around a bit. Unfortunately the man did something no sane person would do, yet again.

Emile ripped the reflective metal plate off of the air duct, and rolled out to meet the fireball head on. The ball of plasma struck the reflective chrome, but was effectively stopped by the highly resistant metal.

"That the best you got, Candlestick?" the Spartan roared at the Human Torch.

Johnny wouldn't take that lying down, "Oh not even close!"

Unfortunately, Mr. Storm was not thinking straight, and flew straight for Emile at top speed. Four merely dropped to the ground, letting the man on fire blast straight past him and into the highly flammable wood which happened to be the only thing holding back fifty thousand gallons of water.

The wood would have given way almost instantly just from the heat the Human Torch was giving off, but the fact Mr. Storm had barreled into the wall of wood at nearly fifty miles an hour meant that he was subjected to the water instantly.

Steam blasted from the hole his body had created, and for a few seconds Emile thought that it might not work, but soon water began to come out along with the steam. Finally, the steam disappeared and a blue figure was thrown from the rain collector in a waterfall that spread across the roof to the point of overflowing.

Emile waded over to the semi-submerged form of Johnny Storm and picked him up, holding him level with the Spartan's own emerald eyes.

The blonde man sputtered and coughed dirty rain water before opening his eyes to look at Emile's masked face, "Flame…" COUGH, "F-flame…"

Emile slammed his forehead into the Human Torch's nose, breaking it and finally knocking the young hero unconscious, "Flame off."

…

Thirty minutes of evasive tactics to prevent any eyes who may have been following him, Emile slid into the passenger seat of a tan truck and shut the door behind him, "Good of you guys to pick me up."

"Status?" the pale man in the driver's seat asked.

"Mission success, sir," Emile replied, "The Human Torch is laying on a rooftop, unconscious."

"So is Spider-Man," Jun said from the backseat, "Though I did mine without causing any property damage."

"My guy was on fire! Literally!"

"Children," Six put in firmly, "Stop arguing, we're headed for the Pelican fifty miles north of here. You can settle your argument on the Vengeance."

"Yes, sir," both Spartan's replied as they sank back into their respective seats.

"Did we kill Petruski?" Emile suddenly asked an hour down the road.

Daniel cocked his head, "I don't really remember. Jun?"

"I didn't kill him," the tattooed Spartan said honestly.

"I didn't either," Emile said.

"Oops…"

And that's chapter two! Cut a little short in the end, you never really got to see what was going on up in orbit, nor was there very much on the Spartan's reactions to seeing an Earth that is full of powered individuals, but what can I do there that hasn't been done a thousand times?

I know I promised shorter chapters, but I couldn't help but drag this one out, especially with the battle with the villains, and the subsequent chase with the two superheroes. I had originally planned on a city wide chase involving more heroes, but I figured two Spartans knocking out two heroes good enough. I was worried about copying Harbinger of Kaos's story with the interactions between the Human Torch and Spider-Man, but I figured a massive amount of cranial trauma would be enough to distinguish my fic.

So I've already made a rather large impact on the Marvel Universe, I've just killed two villains and beat the shit out of two heroes, so that's always nice.

If your wondering what the hell is going on with the implied Peter/Carol pairing in this fic, you can thank mcknight93, he requested it, and since he did help with about ninety percent of this story, I figured I owed him one. Plus it's bound to make a few people out there happy, but don't worry, that pairing won't be central to this story, just kind of off to the side, where you can see it, but ignore it if you want to.

Hope you don't mind me adding a bunch of Halo 4 weapons, they're just so cool!

So I've decided to screw with cannon just slightly, mostly the timeline. I'm thinking I'll do Secret Invasion before Civil War. I would think that Noble Team would probably be able to detect a fleet of Skrull ships headed towards Earth, not to mention with their less than gentle means they may expose quite a few Skrull agents when their corpses revert to their normal form. But I still won't be doing that particular story arc until after my own original story line, the Decimation of Hydra.

I've also got a little plot bunny nibbling at my brain, I'm considering bringing the Flood in after Secret Invasion. Perhaps the Skrull found a Covenant ship that had been stranded in the Marvel Universe. Finding the crew dead, the Skrull take a bunch of the ship's cargo including one small container that rattles every time someone gets near…

Also, I only need one last pairing, I need a guy for Kat. I've heard Captain America, I've personally thought about Hercules or Colossus, and briefly Hawkeye. I just want you to know, I won't even consider Tony Stark, not for a second. If you don't like that, well then call it writer's prerogative.

Let me know what you think in the comments, thanks for reading.