I guess I'm not done with FF- rather, it's not done with me.

At least I finally made it- Happy New Year everybody! Let's see if we can keep this trend going.

P.S. My apologies for the rough edges; this thing has been in the works for months now and I just wanted to get it out.

"Not just yet,"

And so everyone waited, in disbelief; the Zaku pilot was just a scarecrow wavering in the breeze, pumpkin-headed, stick-frame draped in rags. He couldn't be real, not like Gallia who even in her semi-lucid state filled out the silvery spacesuit with nauseated groans and shudders. What stood before them was too flimsy, too charred, and moreover too quiet to be anything living.

With no one stopping him, the Zaku pilot reached up with both hands to remove his helmet, pistol knocking against the hard plastic as he fumbled with the vacuum-sealed latch-ring which finally gave way with a broken click.

"Hey-!" Blake was the first to move, eyes flashing silver on the weapon in his hand. She drew her own handgun from the sheath of Gambol Shroud while he struggled to remove his helmet with one hand. "Don't move-!"

*Thunk…*

His arms dropped, helmet rolling and settling into the grass not far from his feet. The pistol remained as if melted into his gloved hand while his arms fell to the side, and Blake felt her composure slip.

"Y-you…"

"-Look like a zombie," Yang recited glibly, folding away her gauntlets but keeping a level eye on the Zaku pilot, "Giant robots, aliens- We stumble onto the set of a B-movie shoot or something?"

He smiled- at least, they thought it was a smile. Now in person it was hard to tell: a smirk, a grin, a snarl, a rubber Halloween monster mask.

"A bizarre, cult-classic," He revealed, like a dentist pulling back on his gums with latex gloves, perfect teeth. His head lolled to the side as he regarded them, wondering if they would get the joke. "You know the story where the man wakes up one day to discover he's become a cockroach?"

"Hey- it's just a kid," Weiss blurted out, turning her unvarnished disgust towards Blake who had yet to lower her weapon, "He's just a kid! He can't be any older than Ruby!"

The girl herself remained mum, staring unblinkingly at the one responsible. She offered no protest that she was not a kid, nor in any way, shape or form like the deranged boy who stood in front of them like a stray dog.

Except, a stray she would have found pity for; there was none in her eyes, no disgust or hatred, for that matter. Anger was gone along with relief. Her stare was in fact, very un-Ruby-like. Devoid of emotion, she saw him as he was, with everything else peeled away:

Almost no fat on his bones left a tanned hide, the smile fitted to his face like a knife into a leather sheathe. He didn't seem pale, but neither could he be said to look healthy. His skin was waxy, as if rather than sweat, he had started to melt before slithering free of the burning cockpit. His hair was dirty and frizzed, cut short so that it sat on the top of his head like moss. On either side of his shaven skull dangled bits of wire attached to electrodes. The stick-on silver disks were connected by a subway map of blue veins under his paper-thin flesh. Hearing aids laureled his ears, and his pupils were massively dilated. Though he obviously saw them clearly; the hard-boiled yolk of his eyes turned to look at Ruby who, try as she might, couldn't help but flinch.

"Sadly, only one of us will escape this Kafkaesque nightmare…"

He took one, wobbly step forward before Yang slid in front of him like a boxcar.

"You're not going anywhere, Buster. And if you want to walk- or hobble- ever again in your life, you're gonna drop that little peashooter right now."

Somehow, with his one-size-fits-all smile he exhibited cluelessness, looking up at Yang as if she were some form of strange but ultimately harmless alien- rather than the other way around- and he was humoring her gibberish.

"Hear me? 'Cause I'm only gonna give you this one warning- which is more than you deserve, considering. It's been a long day, thanks to you, and the only reason I'm not kickin' your a-buttocks right now is because I honestly can't say it would be worth it lifting a finger to clobber someone as weak as you."

In Yang's eyes he really was pathetic. Not just his physical stature which was at least a head shorter, hunchbacked and skinnier than her little finger. What was truly inexcusable to her was the weakness of character. With all the armor stripped away, he was no better than an internet troll. A true child who continued to press the adult's buttons because he'd never been smacked before. Doing so would have been like a bear trying to remove a mosquito without turning it into paste.

"But I swear, you make one more move at my sister-"

He took another step.

"I'm serious-!"

"No doubt."

No hesitation as he shuffled towards the blonde bombshell, pistol clutched in a death grip and the determination of a toddler that knew what it wanted.

"In a fight, serious is the only way to be,"

A stone-faced game of chicken, Yang waited until they were nearly toe-to-toe. At this range, even the piddling little .25 or .32 chambered by his pistol could puncture her Aura and bury itself under her ribs. So close, she could have smothered his crazed grin beneath her cleavage.

Yang had put better men than him in the hospital for less. With but a flirtatious wink she had been known to disarm the most foolhardy and overconfident admirers, even those who claimed to like 'challenging women'. But even glaring at him, neither blinked. His eyes reflected her stare like shallow mud-puddles, and Yang saw the moment, the sunset-red spark as she lost- her temper.

"Stop!"

She froze, the shadow of her fist eclipsing his unflappable smile. Even with her arm hovering over his head like the sword of Damocles, the Zaku pilot turned, almost lazily, away from Yang to see who had interrupted them. He hadn't even attempted to raise his pistol.

"Don't-" Gallia was breathing heavily again. Probably wouldn't be upright if Ruby wasn't supporting her, accompanying her like a wheeled IV drip as she hobbled forward. "This is… my fight."

The two shuffled slowly but unerringly forward, looking like the last-place contestants in the three-legged race. Well- the last to finish the race- Yang amended, seeing as how she and Ruby always ended up as a pile of tangled limbs and almost-swear words a few steps past the starting line.

In the face of this surefootedness she stepped aside, letting the ensign and her sister approach the Zaku pilot. Yang was unable to recall a time when she and Ruby had seemed so in-sync with one another. In fact, to her shame, she could scarcely recognize her younger sibling who now seemed older, so much older.

Thousands of light-years away, Ruby stared fixedly out at a battle in the depths of space. Snapshots of life flashed in front of her like fireworks or laser-blasts. Memories which were not her own competed for her attention, her affection and empathy the closer the got to the enemy pilot.

-Enemy? Where did this word come from? It struck her- a glancing blow, and she was able to shake it off. No. She didn't know the other pilot. He was just…

But as she waded further in, more words were being thrown around: Zeon. Federation. Titans. Side 6. Home. Family. Friends. Comrades. Conflict. Fight. Death. Murder- The last was a gunshot wound to the stomach. Emotions so much more potent than the shrapnel fragments of memories whizzing around her.

Ruby knew loss, was familiar with the way it broke apart something inside. She had had time to heal around it, somewhat. For Gallia, the battle and the wound would be fresh. But this hurt that she now experienced had been allowed to fester, rotten on the vine.

Was this what he felt-?

A hand squeezed her shoulder, a half-hug before Gallia removed her arm from around Ruby's neck. She gave the younger girl a tight-lipped smile that was of little comfort; even as the Gundam pilot pulled away, Ruby could still feel the anguish and grief which was imparted to her like a warm handprint, and which they now shared.

-Which they all shared: thoughts, feelings, experiences: the confrontation of Boy and Girl was a Venn-Diagram of life, colors spilling outside the lines to blend and twine. Threads of thought tangled, past, present. Different perspectives of events came head-to-head, sometimes braiding into a well-formed continuity, other times exploding like the spray from a firehose against one another. Emotions from which continued to smolder like embers, to be washed back to the everlasting pool surrounding each pilot, shimmering with an aura like a soap bubble.

No, not an aura- Aura- Ruby suddenly realized even as she continued to watch, the colors eclipsed their human husks, becoming too much to view directly. The meeting of these two souls like the mixing of hypergolic fluids became blinding, and she turned away with tears in her eyes.

The longer one looked, the sadder it became.

"So…" The Zaku pilot spoke, his voice cracking, flaked like the rubber collar of his suit which was suddenly too tight. "Gundam…"

Gallia didn't respond, and so he was forced to look at his feet, trying to find the anger, the madness he'd shown before. He seemed almost embarrassed, as if he had discovered consciousness and was now looking at himself from an outsider's perspective. Beauty and beast. A gremlin and a fertility goddess. No question who the villain was here.

"Gundam. Gun-dam. A dam for guns. A bulwark against arms," He wet his lips, smirk returning as the dam broke and out flowed all the grievances he'd kept stashed in his cockpit, the way others tacked up dirty pictures with wads of bubblegum, "A weapon which itself is so powerful, it brings the tide of battle to a halt with its mere presence! How wonderful, the naïveté of its designers- or is it hubris? Hypocrisy? What is it that makes a 'Gundam', I've always wondered? Is it that silly little crest? Like a crown, if you gave a GM a pair of horns would that make it as powerful, as respected? Would a Zaku smell as sweet as a rose with such a 'Vee'? V for 'victory'.

"Maybe 'Gundam' is a title like messiah. Like Amuro Ray, the infamous Newtype. Famous? I guess it really is a matter of perspective. Of belief. Faith, that we're doing the right things, killing the right people. That there is such a thing as 'killing for good'. Of course, the victors will tell you they were in the right. So it's always important to be on the winning side, to be the strongest, in order to preserve a clean conscience. To be innocent.

"Ever notice how all the Gundam pilots end up being kids? Do they intentionally choose them- or are they chosen? Is that what being a 'Newtype' really means? That we can retain the shred of optimism we have as children? Is compassion really necessary in such a weapon, in war-"

"I hate you."

He recoiled, withered like a snail's eye-stalk when someone barely touches it.

"I hate you," she reiterated dispassionately, a calm warning in his ear: proximity alert: incoming fire; evade, evade, evade- "I hate that you've made me hate you. I hate the people who put this hate in you, and who gave you the means to spread it."

He tried to hide the pistol behind himself, ineffectually, turning his body edgewise as if he too might vanish from sight like a piece of paper. She reached out and caught him with an open hand, gently lifting his chin to face her. It was furled with wrinkles, his smile pulled down so that he was baring his teeth the way a cornered animal would.

"I hate stupid reasons people have for hating one another, everyone who continues to use this war as an excuse to ostracize and menace and kill one another. I hate that weapons like Mobile Suits and the Gundam are necessary, and that by using them, we dirty their hands as well as ours."

Recoiling her hand over her heart, Gallia grabbed a fistful of her suit, the material crinkling and straining along with her voice.

"But most of all, I hate-"

*SPLAT*

The sound her lunch-tray made as it landed face-down on the linoleum-tile floor was definitive. Not even so much as a bounce, as if to say that the laws of the universe were immutable, the same on any planet. No matter which direction your gravity pointed, toast always landed butter-side down. And things always went from bad to worse.

"Oops, sorry about that."

Gallia looked at the ground, not acknowledging the apology which was as artificial as the block of meat-substitute which had, of course, slid halfway across the lunchroom when dropped. Murphy's Law, she recalled.

"Well? Aren't you going to say something?"

Tempted not to. Weren't they supposed to be over this schoolyard bullying stuff by now? Most of them were out of high school, and they were all currently enrolled to become pilots for the military. The year was 0085. Had nothing changed?

"-Sorry," came her perfunctory response, mumbled so thoroughly that no one could tell if she was being shy or rude- or even what exactly she said. A middle-of-the-road response.

Maybe she ought to be angry, frustrated, but what would that do? She wasn't even that hungry, and it wasn't like her ruined food would go to waste; it would be composted in order to grow the next crop of growth-enhanced corn.

Recycled, like the not-so veiled insults whispered behind her back. Really, some of the things she heard sounded like they came from last-century's afterschool specials:

'If you can't find a normal suit in your size, why don't you wear one of the boy's? I'm sure they'd have one that fit you.' 'Don't mind Gallia; she's harmless.' 'Always so calm… think she just lies there during "it"?' 'Nah, don't pick her as a partner; sure she's an easy win in the sims, but you won't get any experience.' 'For someone who is alone all the time, you'd think her scores would be better.'

"Come on! Gotta be more energetic than that!" Aggressively feigning friendliness, the boy who had bumped into her and spilled her food slapped her shoulder harder than necessary. "What're you gonna do with slow reactions like that in the real world? Think Zeke's just going to come to you and lie down and surrender?"

He's right, of course, she acknowledges as she crouches down to scrape up the remains of her food. Not looking at him as she removes herself from his grip- she can't even recall who it was, exactly. If he was one of the ones who died in the Zeon remnant's surprise attack a mere eight hours later. Faceless, nameless in death.

It was a day like any other; This wouldn't be the first time Gallia had missed a meal, working straight through lunch om a project, or else hiding away in a girl's bathroom, door locked and knees folded up so that no one would see her legs underneath the stall. Sometimes she'd think ahead and bring a textbook. It was just easier that way.

It wasn't bad- really. She was never in any danger of starving. Didn't seem to lose weight regardless of diet or exercise. And frankly, dealing with most people was more effort than was worth, in her opinion.

So why bother? Why try to explain what was in her head to people that couldn't care less? Why be fast or aggressive when she could be deliberate and not make mistakes? Why try to be beautiful, to strive for euphemism like 'voluptuous' or 'Rubenesque' when she could earn titles like 'smart' or 'diligent' (along with a jealous knife in the back, she admitted)? Adults, teachers and the parents of the few friends she had would always call her 'grown up', which Gallia took to mean that she could see the long-term consequences better than others her age.

And yet- where was she going?

Around her, the chatter of the lunchroom was still going on uninterrupted, at full volume. No one paused to gossip behind their backs about the embarrassing incident; two girls adjacent from Gallia whispered amongst themselves before breaking out in a fit of giggles. Even if they were mocking her, they didn't try to stifle their bubbly laughter which spilled out over the floor like sticky, orange-flavor soda, mixing with the brown gravy staining her palms. She was sure she looked like shit.

And that was the worst part of this, wasn't it?

The whole point of this song-and-dance was to punish the girl from Side Six with irony, condemn her to a Grecian-style Hell where she was treated to the same neutrality her homeland had claimed during the last war- As if she were responsible for that! Hadn't they learned anything from the One-Year War about ostracizing the spacenoids? About equality? Moving on from the past?

That was the worst part, Gallia decided as she scraped the ruins of her scholarship-subsidized lunch into the recycler and slotted the tray into the cleaner's conveyor belt (they didn't even have lunch staff she could commiserate with). She slunk out of the lunchroom, letting the automatic doors scissor behind her. But being in the hallway didn't cut out the ruckus, the obnoxious, perfunctory laughter from the Jocks' table reverberating dully in the back of her skull like a jingle from a commercial that stopped airing centuries ago.

Yes, as much as this annoyed her, as much as she saw through the charade and tried to be above the teenaged soap-opera other trainees conducted with less tact than preschoolers playing "soldier", she couldn't bring herself to condemn them. They were just like children not knowing the difference between hunger and a bellyache. Ignorant. Not malicious but misguided. Whereas she… she ought to know better.

No. She did know but remained silent. Because she was a coward. Because the one person Gallia did hate she had known all her life, was responsible for every setback in her success, was the real reason she shied away from looking in the mirror every morning.

The only person Gallia had a right to hate, was…

"Most of all, I hate…"

Her throat was raw from stomach acid, an atmosphere decadent with unnecessary volatiles and noble gasses. It hurt to breathe; she had spoken too much already.

"I hate that I understand you- I know you,"

His name was Badr Salazar, second child of 5th generation spacenoids. His ancestors had originated in Al-Andalus, sticking around after the fall of Granada (the one on Earth, that is) in 1492 A.D. But in U.C. 001, his great-great grandparents had been some of the first people to emigrate off-world, away from all the history tying them down.

Badr had grown up in the Colony 13 Bunch of Side 2, caddy-corner to the infamous 'Hatte' colony. On his seventh birthday Badr had a front-row seat to Operation British where the newly-minted Grand-Dutchy of Zeon had, in one fell swoop, surpassed any genocide committed by mankind thus far on Earth, and cast an inauspicious pall on the future of humanity in space.

In a sense, Badr had been born without a past or a future; by his first birthday it was clear that his body was not developing properly, and doctors prescribed a sheltered life of not more than thirty years. He grew up with this deadline, watching his older sister try to live vicariously for him, spending her precious free time with him, and doing all the things he could not while at home under lock and key.

'Like Rapunzel,' she taught with a smile, massaging the gentle craters of his scalp with shampoo. 'Only with less hair,'

Stories were precious glimpses not only into the outside world, but into other people as well. Though his only means to feel alive, like he was making decisions on his own, was when his sister and he were playing a game. Thus, winning meant a lot. It was everything.

'It's just a game!' Their father raged while Badr stood in mute tantrum behind his sister, watching her fists quiver impotently. In the background corner of the apartment was a feeble coughing. Their mother kept working even in her sickbed, dying aloofly. 'Quit distracting your sister from her studies!'

Things fell apart after not too long. Gallia could no longer trace the logic of his story, a film reel tied in a mobius strip, the motive looped back in on itself. She was left with the impression that Badr himself didn't understand why he turned out this way, had no justification for why he fought. Other than it was something that he was good at, that the Mobile Suit allowed him to do.

"… and yet, I cannot forgive you."

"What's there to forgive?" Badr asked with a bemused quirk of his brow, "We are two enemies in battle, and that is all-"

"I should have killed you," Gallia ruthlessly cut him off, shaking her head in disgust, "I would have killed you- I was so close! But, she…"

She turned, the huntresses in audience flinching as Gallia's gaze strafed them and finally settled on the figure in the foreground.

"Your sister, she stopped me."

Her teammates froze and looked at Ruby.

But she could offer no explanation, sitting there penitently with her head hung in mourning. Sorry that she couldn't elucidate better, or that she couldn't prevent this tragedy.

Weiss was the first to notice the soft glow coming from the Mobile Suit they had thought was inanimate. She gasped, alerting the others who then froze as if they might gain the attention of a massive, ancient reptilian predator.

"Even after what she's become, she still loves you," Gallia sighed wistfully, staring sidelong at the Gundam whose eye once again winked out. "Despite the madness and anger there is still compassion for her bothersome little brother," Once more she addressed Badr, "And I know you love her too- else, what is all this for? You really think she'd approve of what you've done? What you've become."

"No."

He didn't look the same without the smile: tension gone from his face allowed it to age, wrinkles forming and turning him into a hundred-year-old man. Stooped, shriveled with beady black eyes staring hatefully back out at the world.

"No, no I don't think you understand: whatever it is you think you saw is but a pale fraction- a shadow on the cave wall. My sister was- her life- so much more…" Shaking his head, making it a point to look viciously away from the Gundam's hollow watch, "She was always better than me. Little wonder they picked her. The Fed scientists… our father tried to find the origin of her Newtype abilities and extract it into a program- as if you could resurrect the hand of Davinci from a postcard of the Mona Lisa! Such arrogance!

"And you, Gundam- who are you to judge me? I saw no hesitation to kill in battle. You were perfectly willing to use my sister as a weapon- no. No, no, oh no…" His smile was raised from the dead, stiff lips twisting into a cruel abomination of glee, "You let yourself be used- that's it, isn't it? That's the reason you were chosen as a Gundam pilot. Why you couldn't bring yourself to be trusted by your so-called 'comrades'. Why you allowed them to die."

Reaching for a denial, what came first to Gallia's lips instead was another bout of stomach acid. Her jaws snapped shut, nearly biting her tongue as she swallowed what felt like a punch in the gut:

He knew. Badr knew, just as she did- she should have known the connection wasn't a one-way mirror, but a looking glass whereupon their smallest faults and insecurities were revealed.

"I wasn't chosen. No one knew I was taking the Gundam I- it was the only Suit available," she admitted to a lesser sin. Lesser. Weaker. And any move to support her position just felt like more excuses. But she couldn't help it, "I couldn't've known about your sister! None of us expected to have to- we were all victims of the war. Just like you. I don't know anyone who waseager to see a return to open bloodshed, and yet… We defended ourselves- of course we did. But if you hadn't- if we'd had a choice, we'd just want to live in peace!"

"You chose to put on that uniform, knowing that it would make you more enemies than friends," he pointed out gleefully, "Why'd you do that, anyway? Since you claim to value comrades so much. Was it something you felt like you ought to do? Or just because it was easy? A or B?"

"Don't think that I'm some easily manipulated little girl! I know the Federation aren't saints! But they're better than-"

"-Psychos like me." She patiently waited out his cackle- coughing fit, after which he wiped his mouth with the back of the hand holding the pistol. He contemplated the red flecks like a ladybug on his finger. "Hating me is low-hanging fruit. So is forgiving. Like a stray dog that bites your hand. The right thing to do is to put him down. But not everyone can do it. How did I lose to someone as fatuous as you, anyway?"

"I'm not-!" Gallia started to say but held her tongue, not knowing the word he used but realizing she was being goaded.

Was this what having an insufferable little brother was like? Gallia had never minded being raised an only child. But she always wondered if that was because she hadn't known any differently, or because siblings complicated things. Having to endure Badr's caustic repartee, she was glad for all the unborn children, ideas which died in the womb.

"I-" Shaking her head- no, no, no! she shouldn't be having thoughts like that! And yet they existed. Healthy sibling relationships were out there. She'd seen them- felt them! Yes! That girl with red cloak and her fair-haired sister… or had that been a fairy tale? A book? T.V.? Another life…

"Damnit!" It felt like the appropriate time to swear (like she was following a script), "I'm not the Bad Guy here!"

"You're nothing."

Badr spoke without inflection, a voice of reason, sounding very much like Gallia's consciences which always reminded her how she was faking being friendly, pretending to be a good person.

"You don't even have the decency to deny it, do you? Throughout life, just accepting the path of least resistance. Like a leaf on the breeze. If gravity brings you down, it must be fate." Badr shrunk into his high collar like a turtle and glared at Gallia from underneath the stern ridge of his forehead, grumbling, "It's an easy life if you can accept the burden… of being a loser."

"Easy-?" Gallia whispered. The word tasted like ghost-peppers on her fair spacer-lips, breath taken away and immense heat surging to her face-

Easy? Easy?! Was that what he honestly believed? Gallia thought she knew him and this-

She felt betrayed.

She'd been called many things, accepted the criticism and the derision because nothing anyone said to her was as harsh as she was on herself. Overweight? Check that. Anti-social? Duh. Total MS-Geek that bordered on autistic? According to the multiple self-diagnostic tests, 98% likely. Psychopathic- no… well, maybe a little? She wondered sometimes… actually, all the time. Not a single moment of consequence passed without her scrutinizing her actions and picking apart her motivations more thoroughly than the Gundam's wiring diagram located in an access panel behind the pilot's seat.

What had been her motivation in climbing into to the cockpit, anyway? To protect the academy, or to save herself? It bothered her that she'd yet to shed a tear for anyone. So far there'd been no time, but to her that was not an excuse.

Gallia was her own hardest critic. And maybe if it motivated her to be better, she could live with it. But as things stood, she managed to sabotage her own rare moments of happiness; there was little the introvert liked more than to be left alone to read the latest Mobile Hobbyist magazine, or browse the online Gunpla forums. But she could scarcely enjoy it when every moment of leisure reminded her that she would be better served reading more studious material. Or exercising. Or even trying to socialize with her fellow classmates- though these attempts always proved futile. It must be her fault, misreading social ques, either over or under-expressing herself, questioning her reasons for wanting to make friends in the first place.

"You think it's easy, being a loser?" Doubts hung on her like medals, and her own hand hurt as she made a fist. "You're the one who doesn't understand."

Why didn't he? How could he of all people not grasp this concept? As enemies they had held each other's lives in their hands, a bond as intimate as… as…

She envied him. From birth, Badr had someone who stuck by him, who supported him and loved him unconditionally. Fajr, his sister, was still there! Undermining Gallia's determination and fighting her imprisonment on her brother's side. If Gallia had had someone like that…

"So, where do we go from here?" He asked, and Gallia was once again tempted not to respond. Let him dig his own grave. "I don't understand you, and you don't understand me. Why bother talking? It seems to me that-"

"-That's because you're not even trying!"

The accusation exploded from her, everyone within earshot flinching involuntarily. Gallia stomped the ground, an echo of the giant footprint in which they stood. Her hands were trembling as she struggled with reaching out and hitting- with not striking Badr.

"You're not even trying to understand," She near-whispered, sure that he would hear it nonetheless and unwilling to speak up. She was tired, "We both know the world is a shitty place, but you're not even giving it a chance to sort itself out. And if you want to talk about easy- I can't think of an easier life than one where all you do is destroy without stopping to consider the consequences."

Gallia found herself moving forward automatically, no longer belligerent but also no longer caring about what might happen to her.

"It might have been in a war, but think about all the destruction, all the hurt you caused. Don't you feel anything for the people you killed?"

Her feet halted as she felt the hard muzzle of the pistol poking her in the stomach. The other end was supported by Badr's elbow, braced into his hip. With hands partly raise, Gallia cautiously retreat a step. In the background she could hear the huntresses start towards them. But both were stopped from making another move forward or back as Badr brandished the pistol in a show of force.

"If people were capable of understanding one another, do you really think we'd keep making weapons like these?" Keeping the pistol level, he jerked his birdlike chin towards the Gundam. "And if not for Dr. Minovsky, we'd be nuking each other from orbit, blasting one another to smithereens like they did almost two-hundred years ago during the first World War. Humans haven't changed; they don't want to see the people they kill. We keep building these weapons of mass destruction because we're scared of one another. Fear unites us as a species. Why do you think Newtype abilities are said to manifest during life-or-death situations? All it does is tell us what we already know!

"Take a person of infinite complexity and distill them down to a single purpose: stay alive. That's a motivation anyone can understand. Morals are superfluous. Do you need to share politics with a cat or dog to love them? No! Likewise when two people are trying to kill one another, they empathize on a basic, animal level." As he talked, Badr's eyes seemed to glow. In the dusky gloom, like a yellow-orange chem-light which had about run its course.

"Do I feel anything for the people I killed, you ask?" It was almost too dark to see, but Gallia could feel them in his voice, smell the unshed tears the way she could look at a photograph of a salt-flat on Earth with a cloudy sky overhead and know without ever setting foot in that place that it was about to rain. "How could I not? In our suits, we are like knights of old with our beavers down, united by chivalry, a mutual respect. The people I meet in battle are the closest thing to kin I have in this world! We share blood- How could I not feel compassion for them? I regret it, I regret and resent that it has to end this way!"

Although tired in more ways than one, Gallia found herself moving as fast as she ever had in combat simulations, rediscovering her will to live as Badr made his intentions clear.

But the cadet Mobile Suit pilot really wasn't used to doing things with her body, and her reactions were slow and flailing. Unhelpful in getting her out of the line of fire, she tripped on her own feet and fell backwards. The others were too far away to help her in time, and Badr didn't have far to go to aim his weapon.

"Victory…"

His arm was surprisingly steady, voice unwavering. These were actions and words well-rehearsed beforehand. And sitting there on her bum like a kid at an Italian Opera, Gallia realized that no amount of complaining or argument would have changed the course of this act.

"-Is mine."

His smile was practically phosphorescent with the sudden onset of twilight, as if lording over Gallia the fact that when everything else disappeared, he would still be there.

"Zeig Zeon."

The little nubbin of exposed barrel fit into the divot of his temple better than his hand fit into the glove, fingers crammed into that little trigger-guard. With the pistol pointed at his own head, he squeezed-

Flash. Bang.

Gallia blinked.

There was a distinct gap in the events, the time between when the ejected brass shell dropped with a whisper into the grass, and the sub-compact pistol thudding down somewhere far off in the darkness.

Gallia blinked again.

A red cloak fluttered in front of her. There was no wind. It was silent except for the gentle ringing in her ears.

A rose petal tumbled through the air into her lap.

"Heh-" the meager laugh dribbled from the corner of Badr's mouth as he looked at the crimson leaf in his palm. His wrist was bent at a right angel, articulated backwards in an unnatural way like a cheap, plastic action-figure. Nothing supporting him, his legs buckled.

Letting go of Crescent Rose, Ruby dropped with him to her knees as the scythe sunk blade-first into the ground beside them. She caught Badr under the arms, letting him slump against her as his broken wrist hung like the pendulum of a broken clock between them.

"Do I not… even get a choice… in death?" Badr's chin limply massaged Ruby's shoulder as he mumbled.

Sticking lightly on the rubberized wrinkles of his suit, Ruby's hands slid around his back and encircled him, as if to say: 'It wasn't just your life to begin with.'

"Too late for mercy… too late for punishment, for that matter." He rested his eyes, sighed deeply; this girl… smelled of strawberry.

"You still have to apologize," an understatement, underlying so much more left unsaid. Her words to him were saccharine, a mockery of the true sweetness he had sensed from her. Unnecessary, like sprinkles on good ice-cream.

"A nice thought," a shared smile, images of frozen-treats enjoyed on a hot summer day, children playing together on a swing set, laying for hours in the fresh-cut grass while ants carried off drop by drop the ice that clung to a popsicle stick. "Wasted, though."

Before Ruby could say refute it, she felt moisture seeping through her cloak. The moment it reached her skin underneath, the warmth from it turned into a viscous chill as night stalked in.

"I am sorry," Still grinning, the blood seeped through Badr's teeth. Every word was another breech in the dam, cascading down onto the crimson-colored garment underneath. " 'm sorry… 's the least… I can…"

Even weighing next to nothing, it felt to Ruby as if something additional was removed from Badr, like a bird alighting from his shoulder. Her heart fluttered as she quickly lay him on his back, gently turning his head to the side so that he wouldn't drown. As his essence continued to flow out like an unstoppered wine cask, Ruby fussed over him, touching various parts of his body as if looking for a shutoff valve in the dark.

"Hey, hey!" She nudged him, jostled his shoulders trying to get him to respond and tell her how to reassemble what to her felt like a pile of unrelated parts that might have at one time been a weapon. "Wake up! You can't just leave now! You're- dang it!" The last slap to his cheek became a punch, one which she only barely managed to divert into the dirt by his head. "Dang it! Dang it! Dam-"

"Ms. Rose!"

Ruby looked up to see a fairy light bobbing towards her. It was Glynda Goodwitch, elbowing her way out of the dusk and marching up to them. As she neared, the elder huntress flicked her riding crop and cast the illuminated end into the night sky which was just beginning to show the first stars. She did this twice more, until the clearing shadowed by the Gundam was lit up like a stage performance. Then she turned back to Ruby.

She took in the scene without a change of expression- but a hasty step back, turning over her shoulder and calling out, "Medic!"

One must have been following her, because it seemed as if he popped out of nowhere from behind Glynda and was already kneeling by Ruby and Badr by the time the flairs had reached their apex.

The Sawbones looked at Ruby briefly but thoroughly, disturbingly colorless eyes tracking back and forth in their slits like a printer before he ultimately dismissed her and focused on Badr. While he was assessing the patient, Ruby was doing the same to him: he seemed to be of the same generation as Goodwitch, with a similar attitude towards competence and discipline. Which in all fairness was probably what they needed right now, his unhurried procedure along with the official blue and high-vis orange coveralls of an emergency response worker was a reassurance that- no slight to Ms. Goodwitch- her frayed state of dress and agitated demeanor was not.

"Stretcher." The medic addressed Goodwitch with a tone that was calm but firm, and more like an order than a suggestion. Again to her credit, Goodwitch didn't brook any complaint, turning around to bark orders back the way she came. Shouts about setting up a cordon around the building where the Zaku collapsed made Ruby flinch, which went unnoticed by the medic. "What happened?"

"Uhh-" Ruby tried to remember how to speak by reading the medic's nametag: a Dr. Roteskreuz. The mouthful of a name didn't help her.

"He's got spacer's syndrome."

Gallia piped up as she was being helped to her feet by both Yang and Blake. It was the first that Ruby had noticed her team gathered around her, standing far enough away that their shadows did not intrude. A cautious distance.

"What's that?" the Medic asked Gallia, fancying her an even shorter look than the one he gave Ruby. But if it worried him, he did not stop stripping away Badr's suit with a pair of heavy-duty medical shears he pulled from his utility vest.

"-Sorry. I mean, it's slang for- it's an effect of being born in zero-g." Gallia lost all expression as she stared at Badr, rosy color draining and gravity clawing unfavorably at her plump cheeks. Relaxing, dissociating so that she could look past Badr-as-the-enemy, into his past. "His bones are very brittle. Like a sheet of ice on a moisture condenser. His wrist is definitely broken. Probably useless trying to save it," even knowing it had saved his life, Ruby felt an empathetic pain for her actions and grasped the arm which had held Crescent Rose, "I'm also betting he's got some internal injuries. Broken ribs're common in MS pilots. And in his case… without active pressure from a g-suit, his body'll collapse in on itself. Turn his organs to mush."

The scissors jammed on making another strenuous cut through the thick material, and the medic looked seriously at Gallia. She shook her head dismally in response. "The fact that he was able to make it this long without being plugged in shows his determination… he was dead the moment he stepped foot outside his Mobile Suit." Straining herself between the two huntresses, Gallia thought to smile ironically, a salute to the madness. But it hurt too much, was too bitter to be anything but a grimace. "Gravity is killing him. The planet itself is his Hell."

Throwing the shears down on the ground, Roteskreuz grabbed either side of the half-shorn suit as if he were going to shake some sense into the dying boy. They could see his calloused knuckles straining against the white nitrile gloves as he tore Badr's suit the rest of the way off. He hesitated only slightly as he uncovered the young man's body, which resembled an old-style circuit board, only tan and carbon-based instead of green silicon.

Roteskreuz swore under his breath, something about being a medic, not a mechanic.

"Der-teufel- alright. Okay. We have a continuous-style pacemaker here," swapping out one of the torn gloves, he touched the component on Badr's body as if to confirm its location on some imaginary blueprint. "Battery's dead. That could certainly be one of the issues- does anyone have a Scroll?"

"Here,"

The response came from over Ruby's shoulder, so quick and so close that she nearly knocked the phone out of Weiss's hand. Roteskreuz took it without a word being said between any of them, deftly stripped the device of its opaline case (which knowing Weiss was probably genuine opal). He then did the same for the device plugged into Badr's chest- though this required a scalpel and deft wire-manipulation worthy of a carjacker.

Despite professing no talent for electronics, Roteskreuz soon had the pacemaker running off the Scroll's battery and had moved on to trying to diagnose the other system failures. Thankfully, before he had to jerry-rig another human-hack, two orderlies showed up with a smart-stretcher between them.

It was getting crowded; Ruby was practically butted out of the way as the stretcher-bearers maneuvered to be parallel with the casualty. Not even having enough wherewithal to be upset with this rude treatment, Ruby let herself be ushered away by her partner to join the rest of their team. Ruby noticed how they were all milling about together yet as far apart as possible while still touching, like fingers splayed on an open hand.

"Are any of the rest of you injured?" Glynda was back as well, almost back to normal as she took stock of her students and the tag-along.

Gallia straightened up under Glynda's scrutiny. But it was the same stern-faced concern that they were all treated to, and she relaxed back into the arms of the two huntresses as everyone responded in the negative. Goodwitch nodded perfunctorily and then left them alone, discovering that she could finally be of use helping the medics by levitating Badr onto the stretcher.

Amongst themselves, the teenagers could find little to say to one another. This wasn't like Beacon's entrance exam where a finish line and a firm handshake by the headmaster awaited them. Too much was still happening for anyone to be relaxed, and yet no one knew what to do now and there was no one to tell them.

As the adults were putting out fires literal and figurative, Gallia was urged by this feeling of incompleteness. The medical team were about to cart Badr away, his broken body already resembling on object on the side of the highway that upon first glance had once been something living, then just roadkill, and on further reflection was merely a pile of blankets fallen off a truck.

Try as she might, Gallia's conscience wouldn't allow her to discard the idea of Badr-as-human, the thought that she might never see him- alive- again, and that she had a hand in his death.

"Wait-!"

"-Just a moment."

Ozpin appeared as a non-sequitur, his unruffled voice halting the stretcher-bearers just as surely as his pale, clean hand on the lead man's shoulder. More than ever Gallia felt compelled to stand at attention and salute- more than even with her actual drill instructors.

Mercifully the headmaster's attention was doubled-down on Badr, regarding the adolescent Zeon pilot with a dissociating intensity as if the two of them were alone, as if the older man was in actuality a visiting spirit there to impart or depart something or someone.

Badr must have felt this too, sensing Ozpin's presence, he awoke just enough to introduce himself with a checkboard grin.

"…Heavy, i'd'n it?" Badr mumbled, inciting the headmaster to lean in with curiosity.

"Come again?" Ozpin indulged, making himself vulnerable to the crazed glee staring up at him.

"-the soul."

Ozpin stepped away from burbling laughter, touching his face where blood had freckled his cheek. AS the orderlies resumed evacuation of the casualty, he stopped to address Roteskreuz.

"Do everything you can," he ordered, sounding serious but not angry. The medic himself seemed more upset, offended that he should do anything less. Roteskreuz grunted diffidently before accompanying his patient away from the scene.

"Ensign Asena," Ozpin had not quite managed to shake the sobriety from his voice by the time he turned to address the remaining teenagers, unknowingly spooking them with his personal concerns.

"Y-yessir!" Before Gallia pulled a muscle trying to salute, the headmaster raised his hand, willing her to ease.

"No need for that; Headmaster or Ozpin will be fine," nonetheless, something tickled Gallia's mind that this man was extremely important, powerful. If nothing else then by the way he seemed aloof, unruffled by the situation around him. Even as the tall man nodded deeply to her, it was an invitation for her to join his reality, rather than supplicating himself to her, "We owe you a debt of gratitude."

Gallia spluttered, wriggled uncomfortably in Yang and Blake's grip, but any protests were once again preempted by the headmaster's hand. He was in control.

"Whatever the circumstances, you rose to the occasion and supported us in our time of need," the praise was generic and without emotion, but it caught upon the idea of self-worth which had been kindling inside of Gallia and made her face heat up. This wasn't right. The credit shouldn't go to her- she glanced at Ruby who was already looking at the Gundam pilot along with the others with both approval and concern. It had been the young huntress who had provided the spark in the first place.

"Doubtless there are things which need to be straightened out. But even prisoners of war can be treated humanely; and since there is no conflict here, I see nothing wrong with making sure you are taken care of. The cafeteria will be working all night to provide food to the rescue workers, and we are fortunate that the only damage to Beacon was in unoccupied classrooms, so we still have hot water and plenty of spare beds."

And if this had been a stronghold of the AEUG, Gallia would have taken the oath or sworn allegiance or whatever right then and there. The idea of food still wasn't very compelling, less now that her stomach had all but shut down after its purge. But if she could be allowed to disinfect and zip herself into a nice, warm cocoon, Gallia wouldn't care if they shut her away in some military prison for the rest of her life. She was all too aware of the moldering reek locked inside her normal suit's seals, a mud made of sweat and dead skin cells which had been accumulating for what must have been 48 hours or more.

"I could use some water," she admitted meekly.

"Of course." The headmaster gave her a smile that would have been more reassuring had she not seen what came before- or what came before that, Badr's toothy grin hanging disembodied in the blackness of her mind.

"Woah there!" Yang exclaimed as Gallia swooned, scooping the younger girl into her arms as if she were filled with nothing more substantial than cotton fluff. "Try to take it easy, huh? I'm willing to help you shower but I'm not sure I know how to get this rubber getup off of you."

"Sorry," Gallia rather felt as if she were wearing negligee as she curled protectively into the blonde's (ridiculously) strong arms. "I guess I do need food after all."

"Well, duh." Yang shook her head, banishing the reservations and replacing them with the familiarity of taking care of someone else. "I think we're all due some pampering after today. I'm know I could go for a burger and fries, and a strawberry sunnnn-day. Ooh, and a bubble-bath sounds nice. So, you got everything you need? Don't need to chain this big guy up or anything?"

Nobody had quite forgotten about the Gundam looming over them like a mountain, but with nary a rumble or shift, they could pretend to ignore it.

Arching her head backwards, Gallia stared at it upside down in dizzy contemplation.

"Out of gas," she stated, unsure if she was talking about her own ability to think or the Mobile Suit's capacity to move under its own power.

"We'll take care of it," Ozpin assured, which he could see did not sit well with Gallia and so followed up by saying, "I will make sure nobody touches your machine. Personally."

Less than mollified, Gallia had no choice but to accept this. She still had enough brain activity to realize that she wasn't thinking straight, and was thus in no position to challenge the local administration. That, and she also was beginning to realize that even if she were at her peak, there was nothing in a million years she could do if these people decided to stop her physically.

Though this didn't frighten her as much as it probably should have, perhaps because that power was currently being used to port her around like a princess, or a computer-core. Imagine all the maintenance she could get done with that upper-body strength…

Ruby perceived Gallia's consciousness drifting off into a comfortable fugue. Like the shoestring telephones she used to make with her sister, she felt the connection slacken as Yang carried Gallia further away.

"Hey," Weiss was frowning at her- for once in concern rather than disapproval. "You- you klutz." Though her partner quickly tried to hide this, pulling out a silk handkerchief, wetting it and using it to clean Ruby's cheek. "Jeez, you're filthy! That girl's not the only one who needs a bath!"

Sensing the genuine concern from her partner, Ruby tried to smile through the rough scrubbing of her face. But she saw the delicate lace become quickly dirtied, the ivory white turning ruddy brown with all the dried blood which was being scraped off.

What Ruby didn't notice, however, was the way her sister paused to look back at them. An expression equal parts pride and jealous guilt, which Yang quickly covered up, walking into the shadows back towards Beacon.

Soon, the headmaster and Glynda were the only ones left standing before the Gundam's lap; no one had seen Blake disappeared but Ozpin knew that the secretive Faunus wasn't around. He was paying keen attention to this, after all. What he needed to know now was,

"How many?"

"Rescue and recovery is still in progress," Glynda sniffed, adjusted her glasses; neither of which had to do with the fact that her flares were dying and the cool Autumn night was creeping in. "However… not bad- considering."

She hated making statements like this, relative comparisons in tragedy. "Total so far is 72 civilians injured; only two dozen of which required hospitalization. A miracle that none died."

"So far," Ozpin echoed.

"So far," Glynda nodded bitterly, glancing over her shoulder as if she could still make out the bloody mess being carried off by the orderlies. That, or Badr's ghost tagging along at her elbow. She shuddered. "Atlas hasn't given us any indication how bad they had it."

"Most made it out of that one ship- the Tethys," Staring out into the woods, the darkness which could swallow a squadron of such vessels whole without noticing. "According to Winter- apologies, Lt. Schnee."

"You're distracted." Only noticing it in the headmaster because of a brief lapse in her own thoughts; Glynda found herself thinking about the young man who had been piloting the other machine, trying to reconcile its terrible actions with her own drive to prepare the students for what real life was like. "What're we doing out here in the dark, Ozpin?"

"It's quiet." Not hardly disturbing that silence with his vague response; Ozpin's answers were hardly ever answers, but this time it was not enough for Glynda.

"Ozpin-"

"-Have you noticed?" Barely visible now that the flares had been completely extinguished, Glynda squinted at Ozpin in irritation, trying to define him against the flaps and folds of the Mobile Suit's armor. He was staring up at its 'face' which revealed about as much as his own; there was something in both of them which Glynda was only just beginning to make out. "It's. Quiet."

Undisturbed, the day's anger, pain and sorrow lingered like the sting from a slap. There might have been a spark in the Gundam's hollow eye, silent, empty.

Where were the Grimm?