"This is it..." Sylvie thought as she saw the enemy sniper, closing her eyes as she did so. Max...

"Gotcha..." the Zeon sniper muttered as he pulled the trigger. A bout of flame erupting from his gun's barrel soon followed.

In the split second that followed, Sylvie finally let her mind wander, sighing mentally at her own sad life as she did so. But at least, now... She was finally going to be put out of her misery; she would finally be able to have peace. Whether it was with him or in eternal darkness...

Then, something happened that she didn't expect. Her body had begun to move on its own. To move to try to get away from the coming bullet. She just let it be, knowing that there was no way she could...

"What the hell?!" the Zeon sniper suddenly said out loud as he saw what happened. It was impossible... She couldn't have...

But she did. Incredibly, to her own amazement, she had evaded the bullet she had thought to have her name already written on it. But only by a whisker, as she could still feel the heat as it had passed only millimeters away from her head. And with that, a sudden urge came back to her to live. She centered the sniper on her sights...

"Oh God..." the sniper thought as he saw the gun aimed at him. He started to swing his gun towards Sylvie as fast as he could...

But not fast enough. Sylvie pulled the trigger, and was rewarded by a puff of red that appeared on the back of the enemy sniper's head. For a moment, it seemed as if he was still alive, but then the lifeless body dropped down onto the ground, out of sight, save for a trail of blood that marked where he had once been.

Sylvie took another deep breath as she realized what had happened. Six now... she thought. The sixth person I've killed in my life. Six. Her hands shook as before, but now she had quickly regained control over it, and her conscience no longer asked questions. I really am nothing but a cold hearted killer now... she realized to herself sadly. Just a taker of lives... Just waiting to kill, or be killed... A heartless, souless...

She turned around as she felt the need to leave, dropping the rifle as she did so, not wanting to continue the thought. But then suddenly saw two sights that would change her mind, and her fate, forever. The first was of the bullet that had so nearly taken off her head. She was so certain that she would die at that time, yet she hadn't... how...?

That urge to live... she thought... Max? Are you still watching over me? Where you the one who showed me I could have lived through that? Or was it you? Shielding me from harm as you always did? Are you still trying to keep your promise? To love me, always...?

The second sight was of the old man that had died, the one that had tried to stop that Zeon sniper from taking any more lives. From making... more people like him... And they were both the same, weren't they? Two sad people... biding their time, waiting only for death...

Sylvie took a final deep breathe as her heart made its choice. She picked up the rifle once again and started aiming in the direction of the base. He was right. In fact, they were both right. She guessed that fate had indeed dealt her an interesting hand, no matter how much she didn't want it or how much it tore her apart. But she had already seen the path. In fact, she had been walking just beside it since he had left her all alone, but had always been afraid to really walk in it, just as he had done. But not anymore. To stop more tears. Even if it would only be for others. Never for herself...

A soldier wearing a Zeon uniform entered her sights, running towards the hangars. She waited a second, tapping the trigger lightly...
-----------------------------

"Wait..." Jake warned as the Federal hangar came in sight. Something was wrong... very wrong...

"Shut up you..." one of his "fellow" pilots started when a bullet smashed into the back of his skull and cut him short. Jake stared dumbfounded at the dead body for a moment, before realizing that a sniper was out there, and targeting HIM.

"****..." Sylvie muttered to herself as her second target jumped down into a ditch and out of her sights. A smart one, she thought, and she didn't have time to deal with him yet. She quickly shifted her sights to another target and squeezed off another round.

Jake watched as a second Zeon soldier fall dead from the sniper's bullet and muttered a curse. But something STILL felt wrong. It wasn't the sniper that he had noticed... It was something else... Or was it just the fear again, he thought. The fear that he had come to known, since that dark December day at A Baoa Qu...

A third Zeon soldier suddenly fell dead as the sniper fired another shot, but the rest were still ignoring Sylvie. They were all bent in a headlong rush towards the hangars...

Jake didn't know what to do... If he tried to peek out of the ditch, the sniper might get him. If he stayed here, the others... Just like Vincent... just like the Captain...

"Oh my God! Run!!!" one of the Zeon pilots suddenly shouted at the top of his voice. It was soon followed by a series of massive explosions, one that threw up an enormous cloud of dirt that soon covered Jake's ditch. Jake quickly began to stand up, choking from the dust, before turning to where the rest of the team was...

...or what was left of them. He stared dumbfounded into a field now soaked with blood from the bodies of the dead and dying. Everybody was down, victim of half a dozen explosive shells that had been fired in their direction. And Jake realized what he had been fearing as a green mono-sensor began to flash in his direction. They had lost the race to get those mobile suits... and now, they had just lost their lives as well...

"For pity's sake don't!!!" Jin suddenly ordered the lead GM Kai pilot as he aimed for the sole living survivor. Firing on those men out in the open, and seeing them get blown apart had horrified him. He had seen death before, even taken some lives as well, but never like this...

"Shut up!" the pilot growled back as he pointed to the burning base, "How many of OUR friends are dead because of them? How many of us have been blown apart like that!? I've had enough! I'm going to..."

"Shoot an unarmed man in the back while he's running away?!" Jin shot back, "We don't do that!"

"This is war," the pilot muttered back as he switched his attention back to the fleeing Jake, "**** happens..."

Jake only glanced back momentarily as he ran with all his might, only to see the GM Kai aiming its machine gun right at him. He suddenly felt as if all the world had just exploded around him.
-----------------------------

"Lucky guy..." Sylvie muttered to herself as she saw the sole surviving Zeon pilot manage to get up again after being thrown off his feet by a few 90mm shells that had exploded yards from his location. He started running again, and barely managed to find some cover before a second volley nearly blew him to pieces. But the cover didn't shield him from her, and now...

"This is Sergeant Shang!" an excited voice reported over the radio, "Captain Greisser! We have a situation here!!!" the sound of gunfire quickly followed his voice.

Sylvie muttered a slight curse as she decided to let the guy go. He would probably be caught anyway, and it would have been a needless waste of ammunition. Her greater concern for ammunition rather than another human being's welfare suddenly entered her mind and caused her to shudder internally, but she quickly swallowed to get rid of the thought. She was needed by others who needed her help, and she had to do it quickly...
-----------------------------

"Find me a working radio!!!" Captain Ivan ordered as he ran around what was left of the base's barracks. His original radio had already petered out thanks to its only partially charged battery, and he needed to re-establish contact with the others, quickly. Natalie would need all the information she could get once she arrived with the reinforcements, and that Private O'Connor was certainly good at providing it. However, he also needed to...

"Here sir!" a Federal private reported as he handed Ivan a compact two-way radio, already set to O'Connor's frequency.

"Good!" Ivan replied as he took the radio from the private, "What's your name, Private?"

"Jenkins sir..." the private replied nervously, partly from the shock of the battle and partly because of his fear of the unruly Ivan.

"Jenkins, take a few more men with you to find and take care of the wounded," Ivan ordered as he pointed to an emergency casualty station that now held six wounded men, including Terry, "And find me a good Sergeant to get a few men together for a counter-attack. We may have our mobile suits now, but we'd better get some infantry men to support them."

"Umm... yes, Sir..." Jenkins replied, surprised. That pig-headed, murderous Ivan, ACTUALLY ordering him to help the wounded? Was he suffering from a concussion or...?

"Then get moving already!" Ivan ordered, and Jenkins quickly began to do as he was told. Ivan let out a slight sigh as he realized that he should have been like this before, and not an arrogant, paranoid officer that he had once been. Kyle had shown him that, and it had cost him his life just to make him see it.

Ivan shook his head. This wasn't the time for regret either. It was time for him to be what the men needed right now. A leader. He quickly contacted O'Connor, who already had fresh information to give to his new commander...
-----------------------------

"Those dirty *******s..." Sergeant Shang muttered as he used a mirror to slowly view the terrain around the corner. He and his men had almost reached the building that held the rebel's mortars, but now he had a big problem. A very big problem. A playground lay between him and the Zeon troops, and three children were still on it and didn't have the sense to run off as most of the town's citizenry had done when the shooting had started. Probably because they were being held hostage by those Zeeks. Cowards.

"Get out of here, you kids!!!" Zeon Sergeant Horton whispered as he saw the young trio still cowering under a few monkey bars. This was terrible, he thought, and it was getting worse and worse. Not only had he run out of mortar shells, but now his only escape route was also barred by Feddies and three innocent children. And if the Federal Force, who vastly outnumbered his own group, started an attack...

"We can't leave..." a scared young voice said back, "My sister's too scared! She wouldn't move!"

"God damn it, kid, tell your ****ing sister to get out of here or we might..." Sergeant Horton started before a shot wrang off. Suddenly, one of his men fell dead from the rooftop, his head a mass of red from a bullet that had struck his head. A second shot followed, and another body tumbled down from the rooftop.

And then there was screaming. Screaming as the bodies fell almost on top of the three children, splattering them with some of the blood as they did so. Before Horton could try something else to calm them down, a third shot rang out, and a third body fell on the children, who by then were screaming at the top of their lungs.

"Sniper, Sir!!!" one of Horton's men reported as he met the Sergeant on the ground floor, followed by several other men.

"How many did he get?" Horton asked, now trying to make gestures to the screaming children.

"Four," the man reported, "One of the bloody bullets killed two of ours. We're down to six men, Sir."

Horton muttered a curse as the kids still refused to move and continued to scream . He didn't want to start shooting to make them keep quiet, but at this rate...

"****!" Shang muttered as he saw one of the Zeon soldiers seemingly start drawing his gun. If that guy suddenly went on a rage after losing his men... "Alright men, get ready!" Shang ordered, "We have to save those kids!!!"

Horton was about to fire some warning shots into the air when a group of men suddenly rounded the corner and fired on him. He quickly ducked and avoided their fire, but several of his men were killed or wounded by their attack. Horton and his surviving men quickly crawled to some cover, before firing back at their assailants. A grenade suddenly landed behind Horton, which quickly exploded and killed two more of his men. Realizing that it would soon be hopeless, Horton and his remaining men slowly began to crawl away, hoping beyond hope that they could escape...

"Damn it, don't use grena..." Shang started as some of his men had begun chucking a few of those explosive devices at the Zeon positions. To his horror, one of the grenades flew too high on its arc, and began to fall right on the kids...

Caring less for his own safety, Shang quickly dashed towards the trio and jumped right over them, covering the three with his own body. Then, he simply prayed... prayed that it wouldn't land on him and...

But then a shot wrang out, and the grenade exploded well above Shang who was only hit by a few pieces of shrapnel. Shang, wounded but still alive, began to stand up slowly, and saw to his relief that all three children were alive. Shocked out of their wits, but alive. But that grenade... how...?

"That was close..." Sylvie suddenly observed over the radio as she breathe out a sigh of relief. She couldn't believe she had just done that. It was impossible. It was just freaking impossible. But her instincts and reflexes had simply told her to fire, and against all odds she had hit the grenade and caused it to explode well above Shang. Or was it him again? He could have done it... And he had taught her a bit. But she couldn't have learned THAT fast...

"Uhh... Thanks, Captain..." Shang managed to say in reply as he also marveled at what had happened. That Sylvie was either insanely lucky, he thought, or insanely talented. Little wonder she was a Captain with her own customized mobile suit despite her age and gender... "Mommy..." one the kids began to whimper, wetting his pants as he did so. Shang sighed as he gently patted the kids in the back. Kids...

"Would you like me to help, Sergeant?" a young woman suddenly asked as she appeared in front of Shang, carrying a medikit with her.

"Who are you?" Shang asked up at the woman, slightly suspicious to who she was.

"Doctor Sandra Miller," the lady replied in a cool, analytical tone, "Do you need anything for your wounds?"

Shang was about to say no when he felt a stinging pain in his back. He might need it, but with his men...

"We can handle them, Sarge," one of his men suddenly advised as he slammed a fresh cartridge into his submachinegun, "Captain Greisser is on her way, and Sir, we'd probably need somebody to babaysit those kids..."

"Not to mention you're bleeding rather badly from your wounds," Sandra added, "As a doctor, I'm ORDERING you to stay."

Shang gave out a loud sigh of defeat before nodding his head. However... "Just make sure you don't let them escape, alright?"

"We won't, sir!"
-----------------------------

"Drop it!" one of Shang's men ordered as he saw a Zeon sergeant trying to slink away, firing a few warning shots for good measure as he did so.

Horton muttered a curse. He didn't want to get captured. He was a soldier of Zeon. But seeing all his men die, and facing the uncertainty of death...

"I said drop it!" the soldier repeated.

Horton slumped his shoulders down as he dropped his rifle. He then slowly turned around and threw his hands into the air. It was over, he realized. It was over. Two men from the Federal Forces then stepped forward, taking the defeated Sergeant into custody.
-----------------------------

"Damn it, what happened to Jake and his team?!" Major Gibbons muttered angrily as his men took the last of the foxholes. The base's defenders had been all but annihilated, but Jake had not returned as expected with the Mobile Suits. And to make matters worse, both Gustav and Horton weren't responding to their calls...

"There they are!!!" one of his men reported jubilantly as he pointed to a trio of giant humanoid machines now slowly moving towards their location.

Gibbons nearly ventured into a smile until he saw something else that sent chills up his spine. It was Jake.

"Run!!! Run!!!" Jake shouted at the top of his lungs as he ran towards Gibbon's men, "Those are..."

Gibbons was about to order his men to do the same when he saw one of the GM Kais aim its weapon right at them. He turned and began to jump into one of the foxholes for cover. Too late.

Notice: This story and all related material is copyrighted by Thomas E. "Zinegata" Ting, no part of this story may be taken by any other person. If you wish to use any material, please contact me first. Gundam and all related trademarks are owned by their respective companies.