It can only be a bad idea to start yet another fic when I have so many incomplete ones already, but it dawned on me that throughout Advance Wars fan fiction, although there are a lot of stories that are from the soldier's POV, there aren't any (at least I haven't seen any) that have those soldiers actually interacting with their commanders as people, especially in a negative way. So I thought, "Hell, why not?"

Anyway, this story begins in AW2, during the Yellow Comet mission "Show-Stopper", where Sonja has to take down the giant Black Hole Fortress guarded by eight mini-cannons.

Bushes are not dangerous. True, some have thorns or poisonous leaves, but generally speaking, a bush would not kill you.

Of course, in a war zone, every bush could be a potential hiding place for an enemy. Even a small tank could hide behind the leaves of a bush. And even though yellow did not blend that well, this was the current situation of 'Sakura', light tank of Yellow Comet's 32nd light armor division, squad seven.

It's crew of four men were simply waiting. The four other tanks in squad seven had been destroyed by battle copters and artillery, and no tank crew worth their salt would be roaming around the battlefield alone. Besides, Sakura's crew knew there was a lone Black Hole recon unit just over the hill ahead of them. They had spotted it during their hasty retreat from the front line, and the jeep was likely looking for the lone tank right now, providing eyes for a long range unit.

That was why Sakura's gunner, Ryugeki Suzukai, was keeping his head on the swivel. He had to see that jeep before it saw them, so the turret gunner, Shen, could blast the enemy before it relayed their position to a stronger foe. He had the most important job right now, so Ryu's hazel brown eyes scanned the dark fog continuously, his black bangs kept out of the way by his helmet.

Thanks to Ryu's vigilance, the moment the black steel of the enemy jeep peeked over the edge of the hill, its fate was sealed.

"Shen, one o'clock. Do you see him?"

Sakura's turret swiveled a few degrees to the right to take aim at the unaware enemy unit. "Yeah, I see him. On the way!"

Having warned Sakura's crew to clear the line of recoil, the light tank jolted backwards, launching a standard shell at the enemy. It wasn't armor piercing, but against a recon unit, it was enough. Unable to do anything against an enemy it had not seen, the enemy recon unit was torn open by an explosion from the inside. The tank round had likely hit the engine.

After a few moments of making sure that no survivors clambered out of the wreckage, Sakura was thrown in reverse. With their advance unit eliminated, the enemy would likely send another, stronger unit to investigate, and Sakura's driver, Baek, was not going to sit around and wait to be discovered. As the driver, it was the mustached man's job to keep the crew out of danger by staying away from compromised situations.

Ryu briefly sunk down into Sakura's cabin to check with his comrades. Shen, his bleached blonde hair spiky and wild, was loading another round into Sakura's barrel. Baek was too focused on maneuvering the tank to pay attention to anything else. The final crew member, the dark haired Keima, was the radio operator: no orders had come in from their CO in nearly half an hour, so he was without much to do at the moment.

They may have only been a single tank in the midst of the chaos around them, but the men of that tank were doing anything and everything they could to assist in the assault against the giant black fortress that loomed above them, even after the other four tanks of squad seven had been decimated by the enemy.

Ryu called down to Baek, who, as the driver, was seen as the leader. "What do we do now Baek? We must be running low on ammo by now."

Baek merely eyed Shen. He was the gunner, so he knew how much ammo was left.

"We've got three rounds left, including the one that's loaded. And Ryu, aren't you supposed to be keeping an eye out for cocky bastards with bazookas up there?"

With a nod, Ryu returned to his position outside of the tank. He wasn't going to get everyone killed by not keeping a lookout.

Now that the question of ammo was answered, Baek responded to Ryu's initial query. "Until we're specifically ordered to do something again, the plan is to retreat to a nearby friendly base and join up with a fresh squad, or failing that, to find another tank squad on the battlefield who's down a member to join up with. We won't last long on our own out here."

Shen tossed a half-eaten meat bun onto the metal floor of the vehicle. "Man, we'd better get a promotion for this. If this kind of crap doesn't qualify us for advancement to a Medium Tank crew, I don't know what will!"

Ryu answered the burly, rude young man without taking his dark brown eyes off of the field around him.

"C'mon Shen, you know how stingy our Commanding Officers are. We'll be lucky if we even get a commendation for the battalion as a whole, never mind just for ourselves. Besides, why would you want one of those fat, ugly tanks when we have Sakura here?"

Shen threw his hands up in exasperation. "Did we or did we not take out that mini-cannon when the Medium Tanks that were attacking it got jacked? If it wasn't for us, our CO would have had to throw another two or three squads of Medium Tanks at it! We even lost two of our own stickin' around to shoot the damn thing! And hey, we could have a Sakura Mk. II, right?"

Ryu was about to agree with Shen about how they had made their current Commanding Officer's job way easier by taking the opportunity to gut that cannon (he certainly didn't agree with replacing trusty Sakura with a burly Md. Tank), but he was cut off by Keima, with orders from the higher-ups.

"Throw it in drive again, Baek! We're heading up to Block J26! Orders are to wait there!"

Ryu frowned in dismay as Baek put the tank in drive and headed for the designated block. The COs saw the battlefield from a sort-of bird's-eye view in the HQ, and the map was divided into blocks, kind of like that board game Battleship. It made commanding large armies much easier.

Unfortunately, Block J26 was right back at the front line, near the last remaining mini-cannon. Chances were that what was left of Black Hole's forces was concentrated there.

But orders were orders. Emperor Kanbei's daughter was supposed to be some sort of tactical genius, and Ryu was sure she knew what she was doing: at least he tried to convince himself that it was so.

Sakura and its crew rolled over any debris that stood between them and their destination, and they were unmolested by any enemy forces, although they could hear the sounds of combat increasing significantly as they approached their assigned position. As Ryu had expected, most of the fighting was now concentrated at Black Hole's last mini-cannon.

Along the way, the crew ran into the smoldering remains of a Yellow Comet Md. Tank squad. They were blown apart from the top down, most likely by bombers, and Ryu suddenly became acutely aware of the sound of aircraft above. For more than once in his life, he cursed the fact that yellow was such an easy color to spot against the darkness.

Ryu and his crew skirted the carnage, forcing them to take a slightly longer route to their destination. They eventually came within view of a friendly rocket unit, whose spotter was currently sighting a target with his binoculars. The five rocket trucks behind him were having their recently expended tubes reloaded by their crewmen.

Ryu's observations were interrupted when the tank radio buzzed again. Baek stopped Sakura for the moment, waiting to hear from Keima as to what their new orders were. But the operator's voice came slowly and sullenly.

"Guys... there's an enemy Neotank unit heading towards Block H20. Our orders are to intercept them..."

Keima ended his relay of orders with a tone of finality, and the rest of the crew sat in stunned silence. Block H20 was exactly where the rocket unit ahead was sitting. Enemy Neotanks were approaching them, and clearly one tank and four crewmen weren't as important as those rockets getting off another volley.

Shen was the first to recover from the shock, although his voice still rung with disbelief.

"You… you've got to be shitting me! What's one light tank going to do against a Neo?!"

Ryu climbed down into the crew cabin to cast a questioning look at Baek, their unofficial leader. "Baek, we aren't seriously going to do this...?"

The somewhat older and mustached man let out a sigh of resignation. "Orders are orders… we live to serve, and even die for our country when we are told to do so."

Ryu slammed his fist into the Sakura's metal wall, busting open the skin around his knuckles. "Don't give me that shit! We aren't expendable just because we're down a few tanks!"

Baek drove the tank forward as he answered in a factual tone. "Those rockets are in position to target the last enemy mini-cannon. If they can get off one more volley, this battle will be over. They only need a few seconds."

"But-!"

Baek cut off Ryu's protest. "But you don't have to stay here. We won't need a machine gunner or a radio operator for this. You and Keima should leave while you can. I'm sorry Shen, but I need you to stay."

The crew's usually boisterous gunner nodded somberly. "I understand, Baek."

Ryu's voice rose in anger. "There's no way I'm going to cut and run, but we shouldn't have to sacrifice ourselves either!"

Baek's face was as hard as stone. "You're right; we shouldn't. But we have to. It's our duty to the empire, to our families, and to our comrades. But you don't have to stay. Neither of you do."

His words were apparently enough for Keima to make his decision. The man rose from his seat and climbed for the turret and exit hatch. Ryu scooted to the side to let him pass, but glared at him accusingly the whole while, as the radio operator abandoned his crew for his own sake. His only response to Ryu's glare was a hastily muttered apology.

Baek watched the man go, clearly not angry that Keima had chosen to save himself. He focused his grizzled eyes, which clearly did not belong on a man so young, on Ryu.

"You won't go?"

The young man took his place at Sakura's .30 caliber machine gun, his youthful face a twisted mask of bitter anger. "We'll ride this out together."

Those words ended the debate on duty and self-preservation, and Sakura rolled up in front of the friendly rocket unit at Block H20, now only manned by three men. The foretold enemy Neotanks came within view in moments: five, almost comical looking spheres on four legs with wheels, with exhaust ports in the rear and the most powerful mobile land-based cannon available. Five grim reapers with death in their arms, and a clear victim ahead of them.

Baek pushed Sakura forward to intercept the enemy and give the rockets behind a chance to fire their volley. In desperation, fear, and hopelessness, Ryu sprayed the oncoming death machines with automatic fire, but they pinged off of the Neotanks' thick armor. Even though he knew it was pointless, Shen rotated the turret and fired a shell at the lead Neotank, hoping to at least attract its attention away from the rockets, though the shell bounced right off.

More irritated than actually threatened, the midnight black spherical tanks turned their barrels towards the last tank crew of the 32nd's squad seven, minus one man. All three men of the crew faced their death bravely, but only Ryu was able to see it straight on, with his own eyes, without the aid of a scope or radar.

Baek found it necessary to say one more thing. "Ryu, Shen: it's been an honor to serve alongside you."

As five lethal shells exploded out of their barrels and raced towards them, Ryu cast his sullen gaze up at the sky, just in time to see the rocket volley that would end the battle.

"Honor? What honor does a shield have?"

Thirty minutes after the battle's end, Yellow Comet's three Commanding Officers surveyed the recent battleground. The field had been cleared off all Black Hole forces, and Adder had fled from the boot like the lowly snake he was.

Kanbei, Sensei, and Sonja, the mastermind of the stunning battle, stood a little ways off from where the final fighting had taken place, near the mini-cannon that had been destroyed last. Smoldering wreckage dotted the immediate surrounding landscape, but despite the grisly scars of battle, all three COs were happy to see the Black Hole fortress before them reduced to nothing more than an unmanned building, despite its size.

Kanbei could not have been more proud of his daughter. The enemy had taken massive casualties, Sonja's forces had incurred only minor or at the most average losses, and the whole battle had been won in but a few days. The Emperor knew he couldn't have done better himself. And for once, he was happy to drop his nitpicking and praise his daughter for her show-stopping spectacle.

"Well done, my daughter! What an excellent victory for Yellow Comet! Even I could not have done better! Truly amazing!"

Sensei nodded in agreement, placing his hand on the victor's slim shoulder. "Agreed. I would have had trouble with this predicament Sonja, but you handled it masterfully. I knew you would become an extraordinary Commander one day, just like your father."

Sonja wasn't one to boast, but so much open praise from both of her superiors, and even more astonishingly, her father, caused her pride to swell, if only a little. None of the three cheerful COs noticed the staggering soldier shambling towards them, with blood dripping from his legs and torso and a nasty burn across his face. They were too busy celebrating their 'stunning' victory.

"Well, I dare say that this was an almost flawless victory. Not to boast, but calling it a perfect 'checkmate' wouldn't be a stretch…"

The voice a nearby soldier caught Kanbei's attention, if only for a moment.

"Soldier, you need medical attention immediately. The field hospital is-!"

Kanbei's attention, as well as the that of his daughter and Sensei, was fully captivated when the soldier speaking was shoved out of the way by a young man, maybe not even in his early twenties, dressed in a torn and charred tank crewman uniform. His helmet was missing, revealing jet black hair that was certainly longer than regulations permitted, plastered against his head by crimson blood.

Kanbei cast one of his sternest gazes at the man who was only a few feet away. This type of un-soldierly conduct was unacceptable. "Soldier, what do you think you're-!?"

The Emperor's reprimand was silenced as the soldier being accosted came within range of the three COs, cocked his fist back, and loosed a straight punch: right at his daughter.

Kanbei was too stunned to react in time. Sensei had barely realized what had happened until it was already over. Sonja herself couldn't do anything: for once in her life, she had no idea what to do, because it all happened so quickly that the event didn't even click in her mind until she was knocked to the ground by a fist crashing into her cheek.

It was all so fast, so sudden, and so inconceivable, that everyone in the immediate area who had witnessed the assault stood in dumb silence. But even if anyone had managed to say a word, the soldier that had attacked his CO wouldn't have heard it anyway: he had passed out as soon as his blow had connected, and he was face down on the grass right next to the commander he had knocked out cold.

Let's say for the sake of this story, Kanbei didn't immediately kill this mofo with his katana. Because we all know how that would have gone down.

Anyway, reviews aren't necessary, but I certainly do appreciate them. I don't even know if Advance Wars has a decent community following on this site, but it'd be nice to hear from anyone still hanging around this fandom.