Well to everyone wanting to see a little more of the new and rather mysterious characters Big JZ and Big Z this is ya'll's lucky day. I read Petch's latest pair of stories and I got to thinking, "Red Team and Blue Team really haven't met their new recruits. And JZ is a bit of a mystery, might as well enlighten everyone so that you guys get to know the men under the Tiger Striped helmets." By rhe way, this is another off-shoot of UnknownNemesis's story Red vs Blue Author's Edition.

Questions and Impressions

The two brothers sat off to the side of the talking Reds and Blues who in turn had separated themselves from the two Freelancers Washington and Carolina, who Z kept a very close eye on. Their weapons sat next to them against a tree within easy arm's reach, locked and loaded, ready to go at a moment's notice. They had their helmets off, allowing the cool air to whisper past their faces and allow the setting sun to bathe the skin in its radiating warmth. The two soldiers looked like brothers alright, apart from their contrasting armor and weaponry. JZ's medium length blonde hair was shaggy from a long while of not being able to cut it, it covered his ears and came almost down to his eyebrows which according to his brother would have gotten him in trouble with a strict CO. JZ was busy digging into an MRE as his brother was busy carving a piece of wood with his Bowie Knife into nothing. Z's own light brunette hair was cut into a military style high and tight that was buzzed around his ears and longer up top, just barely allowing it to be longer than an inch at its longest point. The scar on the left side of his face was flattened into a clean thin faded pink mark that raced along his jaw line right where the jaw bone curved down, along with that scar and the dead serious expression the nineteen year old wore at all times he had the look of a true soldier.

"Hey bro?" JZ asked as he watched the other Reds and Blues, specifically the new bunch of Reds and Blues that Carolina had found at Blood Gulch.

"What?"

"You notice something about these new guys?" JZ inquired in his curious manner.

"Notice what?" Z replied, not looking up from the destroyed stick he held in his hand.

"They're all like, young," his brother stated, trying to find the right word.

Z stopped what he was doing and looked at his brother as if to say 'seriously?'

"Coming from you? You're not exactly eighteen either little brother."

"So? I lied about my age and the idiot was stupid enough to believe me."

"Yeah you've told me this many times. But I get your meaning," Z said, analyzing the situation, "there's too many of them that probably aren't of age for this to be a coincidence. Something's goin' on. Two Freelancers leading four squads of Reds and Blues, and Elites suddenly finding our bases and wiping them out? I don't like it, no, something bigger is goin' down."

JZ was silent a moment, comprehending what his brother had just said and digested this information, going over every detail but then thought better of it.

"Red Army's got you paranoid," he said, playfully shoving his brother.

Petch watched the two brothers talking to one another as she and what was left of her squad sat against the Red Base eating a few MRE's and talked amongst themselves. She'd hadn't heard a word from either of the two soldiers in striped armor since first arriving at Valhalla a few hours ago. In fact the Freelancer Washington seemed to know more about him than she did. And Petch didn't like not knowing something about soldiers under her command.

"Who do you suppose he is?" Unknown asked, looking over at the large soldier looking more at the knife he held than anything, "And what kind of knife is that?"

"I don't know," Petch responded poking at her rice and sausage MRE in its bag.

"I heard the others saying he's a commando or something," Lightning replied from next to the Blues.

"Yeah, and that he killed his CO in his last battle," Awriter added on, trying to mess with the Reds, most importantly Petch.

"Yeah right, I'm calling bullshit on that," Unknown responded, trying to dispel the stuff the Blues had just said.

"No I'm serious, I heard some of the older guys talking about it earlier," Awriter snapped back defensively.

"Well he's on this team now, might as well find out," Petch said, shrugging off the Blues' remarks at what she thought was just them trying to mess with her, as usual. A soldier shooting his own CO, what a joke!

"Why don't you ask him? We haven't exactly offered a VIP card," Cogg put in.

Petch looked at Cogg then at Z and nodded.

"Ya know, I think you're right."

Petch walked past her team mates towards where Z was sitting against the tree with knife in hand. He didn't bother looking up as she approached him and just kept whittling the stick he held in his hand as if she weren't there. She stood there a moment, a little hesitant as what to do next, so she decided to make her presence known.

"Ahem."

"I know you're there," Z responded coolly and nonchalantly.

"Hey you wanna sit with us? I mean the Red Team, we were just wondering if you' like to talk for a little while, get to know each other," Petch said back, keeping her voice even and composed, lest she sound like a blubbering idiot.

Z just looked up at her with piercing gray eyes that seemed to scan her own soul like an airport security device. He dropped the annihilated piece of wood onto the ground and stood to his full height, towering over her by at least a full six inches. He slid his large knife into an equally large steel scabbard on his shoulder, making a bone chilling metal on metal hiss as the materials slid against one another. The knife then clicked into place as Z shoved it fully into the scabbard. He snatched his solid black SR99 Sniper Rifle and latched it to his back and held his helmet under his arm, preferring to keep his helmet off so he could enjoy the sun.

"Hey ya Z," Unknown said cheerfully, trying to be friendly, "wanna seat?" he motioned towards a box next to the wall.

"Thanks," Z replied, leaning his rifle against the building.

"So…" Cogg started, trying to find something to start out with.

"I don't think I got y'all's names," Z said definitively.

"Really?" Petch asked, a little surprised at that, "Well, I'm Lieutenant Petchricor, you can call me Petch."

"Lieutenant?" Z asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I'm in command."

"I see."

"Uh I'm UnknownNemesis, you can call me Unknown for short."

"Nice to meet ya."

"And I guess they left the best for last, I'm Cogg," Cogg boasted, puffing out his chest.

"And how old are you guys exactly?" Z asked, keeping an even tone.

"I'm nineteen," Petch replied, "I guess I'm the oldest of us Reds."

"Eighteen," Cogg responded.

"Fifteen," Unknown finished out.

"What about you?" Petch asked, but more like demanded.

"Nineteen, nearly twenty."

"You're not that much older than us Z," Cogg said, nudging his shoulder in a comradely gesture.

"So it seems."

They then kind of sat there a bit awkwardly, waiting for someone to break the ice and carry on the conversation, Big Z seemed to be more of a watcher listener type of person and wasn't much for conversation. But curiosity just gnawed at them all and finally Unknown tried to break the ice.

"Hey Z, mind if I ask you something?" he asked, trying to not sound like he was prying for information.

"Shoot," the large Red responded in a friendly manner.

"What's with your armor? I've never seen a coloration like that before."

Z looked down at his armor, taking a moment to remember his days back in the Tiger Platoon, the good ole days. Taking a breath he looked up, and started talking.

"This is the coloration of my old unit. The Red Army Tiger Platoon, best unit in the Red Army."

"Tiger Platoon?" Cogg asked, curious as he had never heard of that particular unit before.

"Hold on, I think I've heard of them, weren't you the guys who fought your way through Battle Creek?" Petch piped up.

"The very same."

"Whoa, you guys were like legends," Petch said back, amazed at the connection.

"I wouldn't say that, but we did what we could. We lost a third of our strength a Battle Creek, including our CO," Z continued, "We fought anywhere we were needed, mostly in response to Blue attacks spearheaded by the Blue Tigers, my brother's unit."

"Your brother's a Blue?" Unknown asked.

"Yeah, he lied about his age at the recruiting office, took a piece of paper with 18 written on it and placed it under his foot. When the recruiter asked his age he replied; 'over eighteen.' And so he got in just like that."

"Bullshit!" Cogg said disbelievingly.

"I'd believe it if I were you. Because he's sitting right there."

"Kinda hard to argue with that logic," Petch said, chuckling at the sheer audacity of such a move.

"So how come you're here with us instead of with your unit?" Unknown asked, stating the question that been burning in everyone's minds up to that point.

Big Z slumped his shoulder and looked down at the ground. Letting out a long sigh he lifted his head, to his surprise the other Reds and Blues had begun to gather around, ready to listen to his story. Too bad this story doesn't have a happy ending, he thought.

"Well we attacked Freelancer HQ, and we lost," he mumbled, "badly."

"Oh come on, there's gotta more than that to it," Unkown said back.

"We lost the whole force, I was the only survivor but not by much. I had to fight at least six Freelancers in nearly hand to hand combat just to earn mercy." he hissed, a little defensive of this particular tale.

"Did you get one?" Cogg asked, excitedly.

"I got one, with this, sent it clean through his neck, one down, forty nine to go," he replied tapping his knife strapped to his shoulder, "That enough?"

Petch froze, she knew what she was. And she knew that Freelancers weren't popular around here, but what Z had just said sent shivers to her very bones. If Z found out o figured out what her past name was, or who her father was…she dared not think of what would happen. But she had to find out more, she was his Commanding Officer, and rumor had it he had killed the last one he'd had. She needed to know this, and she braced herself for whatever answer came.

"No," Petch responded, lowering her tone of voice to something low and dangerous as she challenged Z to talk.

Big Z lowered his gaze at her, looking her right in the eyes daring her to challenge him further. But she held firm and did not waver from under his angry glare.

"Fine, we attacked. And a Red Army Major not from my unit decided that he'd try to get us all killed. And even did it himself. I shot him, and killed him. Just," he made each word hang in the air, "like, that."

Petch was horrified, her face went absolutely pale, so it was true, this guy had murdered a fellow Red, his CO for that matter! She thought to herself. And I'm his CO now!

Apparently Z saw this and chuckled to himself, thinking that her reaction was the deer-in-the-headlights frozen in fear sort of thing he'd seen from the pilots that had dropped him off at Ridgeline.

"Don't worry Petch, I have no plans to kill any more officers," he lowered his tone of voice to indicate that he was serious, "I've got your back fellas."

Petch felt a pang in her gut, did he know? Or was he just messing with her? She couldn't control the shaking in her hands as she decided to just grab her helmet and leave before she did something that might tip him off.

Unknown and Cogg were still coming to grips with this revelation and began to really shy away from asking about the matter, lest they become the victim of another Team Kill. But the Blues had been listening as well, and now tried to come to grips with this little fact that was now a truth.

"Well," Lightning breathed, a little exasperated at what he'd heard.

"Yeah, that's my brother, doesn't care who he shoots. As he long as he doesn't miss he doesn't care," JZ said from behind them. Making the group jump, except for Colezilla who had known he had walked up behind them.

"How long have you been there?" Awriter wheezed, quite surprised at the very sudden appearance of the young Blue Tiger.

"Not long, just long enough to hear that little drama movie that is Red Team now."

"Hmph, I'd say that's the best analogy for it," Lightning said, watching Petch grab her helmet in a shaking hand and pull it on as she stormed away towards the other side of the canyon, where there was a large hole in a metallic wall and where a large grouping of rocks was. Lightning then turned his attention to JZ and twisted himself to face him, "So JZ right?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"Tell us about yourself, we haven't really had much of a chance to get to know one another since we first met."

"Well, what do you want to know?" JZ replied in a real friendly manner, sitting down on a box and leaned his modified Spartan Laser against it.

"Uh, how about how you're here?" Awriter put in.

"Okay, I sort of blew up my old CO's Warthog, and he threw a hissy fit."

"Sort of?" Lightning questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"Hey, it was still in one piece, I just kinda vaporized half of it."

"Vapor…what! How in the Hell did you do that?" Awriter hollered.

"With this, I modified it, being an explosives expert has its perks," JZ said happily, petting his prized weapon.

"Oh no," Awriter grumbled at the words explosives.

"What?" JZ chuckled, seeing his reaction.

"Yeah uh, we don't have a very good track record with explosives experts," Lightning replied, remembering the infamous actions of Bluetongue.

"I see, don't worry man. I won't destroy your stuff, unless it's within the blast zone!" JZ responded slugging Colezilla on the shoulder, "Know what I'm sayin' big fella?"

"No."

"Killjoy," JZ grumbled, "Say uh, I heard the Reds saying that some of their team was captured or something like that, some girls from what I could gather."

"Yeah, we're down a few of our own as well. Lili and Spritey," Awriter replied to JZ, who nodded thoughtfully.

"Well, when are we headed out to rescue 'em, it's very ungentlemanly like to leave a lady waiting you know."

Awriter scoffed silently at that, but was mostly entertained, "how old are you JZ? And how much action have you seen?"

"Me? Fifteen, action, whoa boy, where do I start? I've been fighting the war since the very beginning, right along-side the rest of my unit, you might have heard of them. The Blue Tiger Platoon."

"Since the beginning huh? Were you there at the battle of Battle Creek?" Colezilla put in.

"Was I there? I started it! I ambushed a group of Reds and then my brother and his unit counter attacked us in turn and we called for reinforcements. Then they did the same thing and it just escalated from there on. Hell of a fight though, I probably got at least three Hornets and a probable Pelican kill. One more and I am an Ace baby!"

"You started that battle?!" Awriter about hollered, "There were over three hundred Blues present and at least the same number of Reds, and you started it?!"

JZ just smiled happily, content with his rather crazy reckless attitude.

"You're crazy," Awriter said quietly.

"Then I wouldn't be much good to ya would I?"

"You just don't give a shit do you?" Lightning asked sarcastically.

"Like a Honey Badger."

The Blues all began to have a healthy and much needed laugh at their new arrival and were actually a bit entertained by his rather rambunctious attitude towards danger. Indeed he did seem to be a Honey Badger, he'd had a history of doing acts of extreme bravery; from standing in front of snipers to blow them to bits to diving beneath tanks to plant explosives in their most vulnerable spots as the tanks rolled along. And the thing about it all was that he didn't care, it was as if too many explosions had disabled the part of his brain that sensed and recognized fear. This is what made him crazy, but also made him dangerous.

"What do you make of those two?" Wash asked Carolina, looking towards the Reds and Blues as they conversed with their new arrivals.

"The two Red and Blue Tigers? I don't. One's insane and the other is insubordinate near traitorous. Not to mention his hatred towards us Wash, in other words: I don't trust them."

"That's what I thought," Wash said, turning his attention back to the matter at hand as he tried to tune the radio so that he could listen in to anything that graced the waves.

The two Freelancers knew of the exploits of the two Tiger Platoons, they were the only real challenge that the rest of the Freelancers felt that they were able to meet on the battlefield, and the biggest fanatics besides the Battle Creek Simulation Troopers. So when two of them showed up out of the blue they both got on their toes. Especially when one had killed his CO in the past along with a Freelancer and the other was borderline insane.

The Reds had no idea what to make of Petch's reaction, she had been reclusive for a while, sticking close to the rocks and making sure no one talked to her. In fact she'd stayed there since sun down. And that was actually worrying them. Was there something more going on? But they decided that it was all just something that must have been bothering her before all this had happened and Z had showed up, although unlikely.

But Petch had just about lost it when Big Z had said "one down, forty-nine to go." She knew what he meant and what that entailed, especially for her. But coupled with that and the fact he'd shot his CO in cold blood was more than enough for her to need some space to get her head on straight and calm down, after all she might be in the cross hairs of that guy for two reasons, both of which warranted his attention. So she'd found a tall tree by some big rocks out of sight of Red Base and sat down, allowing herself to get her mind right and calm down. After all, he said he didn't plan on killing any more Reds, and he had no idea she was an ex-Freelancer and there were two other Freelancers present that he surely had his sights on.

Finally taking one last deep breath she grabbed her helmet and stood up, stretching out stiff limbs. It had been longer than she'd originally thought and it was actually quite dark outside now. She looked at the direction of the bases and simply listened, the soft roaring of the waterfall was in the distance by Blue Base and the Red Base was nearby enough that she could hear them talking amongst themselves. But there was also something else making noise, something quiet and stealthy. She listened carefully, letting her ears listen to the absolute best of her ability. It was a crunching like noise, grass under foot is what she deemed it to be. Every sense in her body went to maximum alert when she put two and two together to realize what that meant. Someone was sneaking around, and didn't want to be heard. She pulled her pistol off of her thigh and held it ready, whoever it was wasn't going to catch her unaware.

She walked carefully trying to make her way towards the openness of the Base and the numerous other Reds with guns that could help her. She had her game face on and she knew it that she might have to do better than that. Whoever it was that was stalking her quietly had gone silent. And that scared her, if they had stopped that meant they were readying themselves to make the kill, and that kill was her. Petch's heart raced in her chest, threatening to burst forth from chest and then through the hard shelled breast plate of her armor. Her muscles began to tense up as she tried to spin around and see whoever it was until she looked up and saw the dark shape of someone on the rocks a couple feet above her. Whoever it was had apparently noticed that she had seen her and made their move.

Unsheathing a massive and familiar knife she finally figured out who it was. It was Big Z. He had his knife out and held ready to leap from the rock above her and strike a death blow from above. She began bringing up her pistol as Z leapt down from the rock knife raised to strike. She held her breath as she aimed at him, not wanting to fire but wanting to live at the same time. She hesitated a single second as she saw the shimmering blade start to arch towards her head. But then, as she started to squeeze the trigger she saw the knife strike something and then from the space in front of her came a large black shape eight feet tall. A massive arm swung at Z and knocked to the side. He hit the rock across from Petch with bone-crushing force. Petch looked to see something that made her gut freeze in surprise and fear. It was an Elite, a massive creature armored head to toe in majestic jet black armor that seemed to glow from the amount of energy radiating from it as the shields activated, crackling the very air she breathed. Bringing her side arm to bear Petch aimed at the monstrosity's glowing green eyes and fired off a single bullet. It ricocheted off sending a wave of blue energy rippling across the head and chest of the Elite as she fired again. But with one savage strike the Elite slapped her and sent her flying backwards where she landed with a heavy thud against a tree and writhed in pain as she watched the Elite advance towards her, energy sword glowing in its grasp.

"Now you die," it hissed as it brought its sword to the sky ready to stab her right through the chest.

She brought her pistol up again, firing as fast as possible. The bullets didn't even faze the Elite as the pistol clicked in her hands. It was empty and her fate sealed. The Elite's shields were weakened, flaring white as it stood over her and reared itself back. What happened next would decide whether she lived or died. The satisfied cackling of the Elite seemed to ring out in her ears as the sword came at her slowly, inch by inch. But then the Elite stopped and jolted forward. The sword plunged itself deep into the tree right next to Petch's head and sizzled the bark and torched the wood as it lodged itself there. Petch looked u to see the Elite bucking like a bronco as it struggled upright grasping at something on its back, roaring in blind fury. Then she saw a single arm raise itself into the air holding the massive Bowie Knife that was not a minute ago aimed at her head. The knife was then plunged downwards, piercing the Elite's thick hide where the armor didn't cover anything right at the neck. Another arm wrapped itself around the Elite's neck and grabbed tight as the Elite gurgled and grunted, wobbling around as purple blood poured from the knife being slowly sunk into its neck. The Elite backed itself up against a rock and slammed itself into the granite and tried desperately to dislodge its deadly over-sized tick.

But then its struggles ended in a gruesome and sickening manner. The hand that had been reaching around the neck finally found purchase and gripped tight and in one savage move yanked back hard. The popping and snapping of the Elite's neck was loud enough that its individual cracks of bone moving where it wasn't supposed to were loud enough for Petch to pick out. The Elite's gurgling struggle ended as it collapsed to its knees and fell forward, the figure of Big Z towering over the dead Elite, blood all over his armor. He reached down and yanked the knife out of the Elite's neck and looked over towards Petch as she sat there on the ground, looking up at him, shocked and now very nervous about what he would do next. But, contrary to what she thought was going to happen, Z took his knife and slipped it back into place on his shoulder and one a very unexpected move, held out a bloody hand and spoke through the helmet speakers.

"Told you I had your back."

And done. What do you guys think of that little twist? That enough of a show that Z will pull his weight on the team? Petch, sorry to almost give you a heart attack but hey, at least you know Big Z won't kill you, at least as long as you're just a Lieutenant to him. And Blues, excited about having another nut-job on the squad? Well this one has a Spartan Laser instead of a Gravity Hammer.

Thanks for reading and if you would be so kind as to write down a review so that I know what you think of it and what all I might need to work on with my writing and that kind of stuff.