It had been 22 years since 9/11 happened and now ISIS has attacked, but they attacked Los Angeles and after a year and a half the U.S. and other coalition forces are invading Iraq in order to take down this menace. That is where our story starts. Not with the invasion, but about 6 months later. Not on the battlefield, but stateside.

Ruby Rose day had been very normal, and meant very boring. She had just recently graduated from high school in L.A. and she can still drive by the U.S. Bank tower and what is left of it which is about 16 stories as opposed to the original 73. But Ruby is currently working her shift at a little dinner in Carson, California when the day got interesting because she saw a man in a camo uniform coming towards the front door. He looked about her age and in her opinion not bad looking. He had short brown hair, then again being in the military meant that, he was muscular but to much muscle, then he walked unlike any soldier ever walks, that she has meet. She couldn't see his eyes due to the sunglasses he had on but he also had a backpack on and a hat with eight points. She then realized that she was staring and how close he was to the door and decided to make it look like she was doing something. The bell rings as he walks in the door.

"Find a place to sit." Ruby tells the man.

"Thank you miss." He replies to her as she grabs a menu and a napkin with the silverware in it.

"What can I get you to drink." She asks him.

"Coffee is fine miss." He tells her.

"Ok when I come back I will take your order. Ok?" She tells him and he nods his head in understanding.

She leaves and grabs a mug and the coffee then takes it to the table he is sitting at and sees him looking out the window longingly.

"Here's your coffee and what would you like to order."

"I'll take a 4 stack pancake with hash browns and sausage please." He tells her. She leaves with the order card and gives it to the cook's, who happens to be Sun and Neptune . You see the people working there also include Nora, Blake, Yang, and Ruby are waitresses. Weiss is the manger. Today was supposed to be her day off but her sister had become sick so she went in for her and boy was glad she did because she got to see a very soldier.

"Order up." Sun shouts through the window with the soldiers order, Ruby grabs it and takes it to the soldier.

"Here you go ." She says while giving it to him.

"Well I'm a Marine," he states and notices her sudden blush of embarrassment,"don't worry a lot of people don't know the difference and do that miss." he says looking for her name tag.

"Rose, Ruby Rose. My name is Ruby Rose and it is an honor to meet someone like you who is going to defend his country." She tells him and she says it with a blush.

"Why thank you Ms. Rose." He tells her.

"Please call me Ruby. Speaking of names what is yours." She asks him.

"Oh I'm Corporal Allen Davis of the U.S. Marine Corps First Marine Battalion First Marines. Stationed at Camp Pendleton." He tells and after that she nods along.

"What do you do in the Marines?" she asks him.

"I'm a fireteam of three other Marines and at times possibly more just depends on the mission." He tells her.

"It must be hard leading all those guys into combat?" She asks him.

"Not really. The hardest part is the paperwork." He says sarcastically. To which she laughs at. He looks down at his watch and notices the time and has a look she gets worried about.

"It has been nice talking to Ruby but I have a plane to catch back at Pendleton and that is a drive down there." He says to her will getting up to pay and walk out leaving a five dollar tip before he leaves she runs up and grabs his arm spinning him around and shoving a piece of paper in his shirt pocket. "What's this?" He asks her.

"It's my address, phone number, and email. I expect any three of those while you are over there." She tells but really commands him.

He then salutes her walks out the door and for some reason she felt like running after him and asking him not to go, but she knew he had to go even if she begged him not to he would still go.

POV Allen

Allen had just arrived at Pendleton and gotten his sea bag out of the trunk of his 1965 Ford Mustang Fastback and was heading towards the bus that would take him and about 1,200 other Marines to Iraq.

"Alright everyone in Company A come over here so we can split you into your platoons and then squads and fire teams got it." Captain Goodwitch yells to the men. All the men and women, which is about 15 or 20 women, go to follow her to the bus they were boarding onto a greyhound bus and there are roughly 120 of them on it. Allen is one of the first and that means sitting near the front of the bus and the person next takes the seat next to him.

"Hi I'm Juane Arc pleasure to meet you." He says extending his hand for him to shake. Which Allen accepts.

"I'm Allen Davis pleasure to meet you Jaune." He replies and before they can continue the conversation the Captain boards the bus and orders everyone to shut up.

"Alright listen all of you you already know what platoon you're in but from there I let your Lieutenants divide you into squads and as such four clipboards with this is being passed around with the assignment and then the sergeant in charge." She tells them and the clipboards are passed around and Allen sees he is to report to a Lieutenant Velvet Scarlatina and then Gunnery Sergeant Yatsuhashi. They were about 5 minutes away from Twentynine Palms airbase where they would catch a C-130 cargo plane to Iraq, which is about a 16 hour flight and he will be listening to his music, watching movies, or sleeping, and a possibility of two of the three. He looks over and sees Jaune taking some meds he recognizes.

"You have motion sickness." He asks him.

"Yeah. How did you know?" Jaune asks Allen.

"I was training to be a paramedic. So I know what a lot of meds look like." He tells him.

"Really where at might I ask, and for how long?"Jaune asks.

"Weatherford College. It's around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan area."

"So how old are you? I'm 22."

"Oh I'm 20, almost 21 now."

"Oh wow that must be awesome."

"I guess so." And with that they both went and put headphones and did there own thing.

Ruby POV

"Hey Ruby who was that soldier you were talking to." Blake asks her.

"Marine" Ruby replies.

"What was that?"

"He's a Marine not a soldier. Soldiers are in the Army he's in the Marine Corps so he's a Marine."

"Ok who was that Marine?"

"He was Corporal Allen Davis of the 1st Marines 1st Division and he is being deployed to Iraq."

"And that piece of paper had your address and phone number right?"

"Yup, and also my email."

"What are you two talking about?" Neptune asks coming out of the kitchen to take some of the dish back to be washed.

"The Marine that was just in that Ruby was talking to just now." Blake tells him and in doing so looks to where Ruby had been and not seeing her there she looks around some and seeing that she was with Weiss.

"Hey Blake that Marine, what's so special about him?" Neptune asks.

"He just got deployed."

"Oh that's not so bad."

"He got deployed to Iraq. So actually it's pretty bad." Blake explains and from the look Neptune gave her he understood. They look over and see that Weiss was scolding Ruby. More than likely for getting so intimate with the customer. Weiss then shoos her off to continue with her work.

7 Hours later

"Hey sis I'm back from work." Ruby yells to her sister in her room. They share a two bedroom apartment that has a kitchen/dining room, along with that the master bedroom comes with a full bath that has a shower/bathtub and also a full size closet and she also a queen size bed. Then there is Ruby's room it is about ΒΌ the size of Yang's, which is about a master bed size, and a desk, so she has the a full size closet, a drawer, and also a desk. The hall that connects the bedroom's to the kitchen/dining room that is also connected to the living room that has a two piece sectional and coffee table along with an entertainment cabinet with a Xbox and PS4 and several games for both and a 55 inch TV mounted on the wall.

"That's good sis. Did you get me the meds I asked for." Yang asks walking out of her room into the kitchen for the meds.

"I'm telling you sis you need to go to the doctor."

"And I'm telling you it's just a little cold. Oh and did anything interesting happen at work while I was gone?"

"Other than I'm friends with a deployed Marine not much." After saying that Ruby starts to walk towards the living room while grabbing a controller to the Xbox one and turning on the TV.

"Wait what so is he hot because if he is I'm calling dibs."

"To late sis he has my email and phone along with our PO Box and also he is the first guy I've meet that isn't just into me for my body." She had grown a lot and let's just say she was very pleasing to the eye.

"Alright sis I'll let you have this one but his buddies are mine." At this comment Yang makes Ruby rolls her eyes.

Around 3:30 A.M.

At about 3:30 in the morning when Ruby hears her phone ring by her head she looks at the caller ID and sees that it is out of country she was going to ignore it at first then she remembered Allen was deployed out of country and she answers it.

"Hello this Ruby Rose."

"Hey Ruby just calling to tell you that we have touched down in Baghdad and are about to head towards our base will be at and it's about a 4 hour drive and that the only we will be communicating for a while is by letter."

"Okay, but why by letter?"

"We are going to be building the base and will only have enough power for the command, infirmary, and comm centre. And before you ask that is because those are priorities first."

"Okay just as soon as you all get the power either email me or something please."

"I will but that might be a few weeks or more." He tells her and she hears someone yell something she didn't understand.

"I got to go there are other people who need to call."

"Okay bye." And with that he hangs up and she looks at the phone and contemplates just getting up and just playing some more Assassin's Creed but decides against it and goes back to sleep.

Allen's POV

"Alright I'm done who's next." Allen asks and a fellow Marine comes up. He then heads over to where the fire team he'll be leading into combat. It is Jaune, a Lance Corporal named Lie Ren, and a Private First Class Sun Wukong.

"Hey Allen who was that you were talking to?"

"Oh just a friend I made before I left." Before they could ask anymore questions their LT calls them over.

"Alright Platoon 1 let's move towards the MRAPs and split up to squads and fire teams and then get into your assigned MRAP." She orders and that puts Allen's fire team in the same vehicle as the LT and Gunny. They will also have the main radio operator for their platoon and the Hospital Corpsman and that means all the seats will be taken. They already have their armor and weapons on them so they have to grab their sea bags and battle packs and head towards their MRAP where they run into the Gunny.

"So you guys are fire team Alpha? Which one of you is the one in charge?" He asks.

"That would be me sir, Corporal Allen Davis. These here are Lance Corporals Jaune Arc and Lie Ren and there is PFC Sun Wukong sir." Allen tells the Gunny.

"Alright I want your automatic rifleman on the gun, the Assit in the back with him, and the rifleman back there also. And you Corporal will be up front with the LT driving am I understood." He orders them in a somewhat menacing way but also somewhat like he was open to suggestions, but they all snap to attention and salute him and he salutes them back then jumps into the back with the seats for the others.

"Alright Jaune get up in the gun and you two know the rest." He tells Sun and Ren. They all nod their heads in understanding and go do what they are told to do. Allen sees Jaune get in the gun and move it to get use to it then he gives Allen the thumbs up and so Allen gives Ren his bags to be stored in the back before heading to the driver seat and getting in.

"Hello there Corporal I'm Lieutenant Velvet Scarlatina and who are you Corporal." She asks him

"I am Corporal Allen Davis ma'am." He tells her.

"Alright I will be telling where we are headed and please don't be so formal when we are in the vehicles please. And that means not calling me LT and calling me Velvet."

"Okay Velvet." He replies very shakily. She nods her head thanking him.

"This is the Captain Goodwitch come in LT Scarlatina we are ready to move out." Velvet moves to pick up the CB radio talkie.

"10-4 Captain," at this Allen starts the MRAP "we are moving out now." She looks over nods to Allen to start moving out of the air base and towards where they are going to be based, Velvet is inputting the coordinates in the GPS and that is the first time he finds out where they are going for the deployment.

"Oh we are heading to Fallujah, one of their strongholds lovely." Velvet looks over at Allen and this causes her to roll her eyes at him.