Chapter 13: War in the Pocket (Part 2)

Are you guys ready for all the pain and suffering that comes with the finale? I sure am! And I bet a lot of you who are familiar with Gundam are too. So, let's keep this introduction short, and jump right into the finale of Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket!

XXX

Winter gave Roman a solid thwack on the shoulder.

"Hey! What was that for, huh?" complained the thief.

"Don't speak so certainly on things you don't know," chided Winter.

"No violence allowed… but I'll make an exception once," the mysterious voice immediately chimed in.

Roman crossed his arms. "What a load of shit…"

INTERMISSION CARD

It's now daytime in the colony. Out near the forest, Bernie zips up his flight jacket, looking up determinedly at the sky. He's going to beat that Gundam, or die trying. Without a word, he climbs into his Zaku II Kai, ready to start the upcoming battle.

Elsewhere in Libot, Al and his mother are waiting at the spaceport terminal, expecting Al's father to arrive soon. The announcement of arrivals sounds over the PA system as Al looks up at the flight schedule screen.

"It's almost time for him to go… Good luck, Bernie…" Al thinks to himself.

Off-screen, a voice calls out, "Al! Son!"

It's Alfred's father, coming floating out of the terminal passageway. "Sorry I was late, there was nothing I can do!"

"Yay, now they can die together! Gods damn it!" Yang fake-cheered, slamming a fist into her chair's arm in frustration.

Back out to the forest, Bernie settles into the cockpit of his Zaku II Kai. He rests his hands on the flight sticks that control the mobile suit, all the while he grimaces. He knows the fight ahead is going to be tough.

Back to Al, he's riding on a funicular back down from the spaceport. All the while, he listens about the story which his father experiences firsthand on the way back to Libot. "There was a battle near our ship, it was terrible!"

"Oh?" Al's mom expresses.

Al's dad continues with, "A Zeon ship was destroyed right outside of my window, it was very dangerous. And listen to this, one of the Zeon ships that surrendered to the Feds was apparently carrying nuclear missiles!"

"Wait, what?!" Ruby cried, in a mix of dawning horror and surprise.

"Bernie doesn't have to fight anymore…" Pyrrha said under her breath, her surprise tinged with a hidden fear.

Blake had a sinking feeling in her stomach. Based on what she knew about tropes, she had a good idea on how all of this was going to play out. It would be too convenient for things to just stop here, wouldn't it?

"Oh dear! They were going to use nuclear weapons?" Al's mom utters.

Al himself looks utterly surprised at the news, looking up at his father in shock.

"Well, that's what they said, and as far as the Feds can figure out, they were headed for Riah."

The animation starts to reflect Al's horrified mental state as he listens to the news from his father. The scenery around him fades to black, leaving only the back of his head in view. His colors fade to cold, icy blue shades.

"But, what I didn't understand is why they would attack neutral colonies…" finishes Al's father. "Al, what's wrong?"

The funicular arrives at a stop halfway down to the city portion of Libot.

"Al, this isn't our stop. Where are you going?" Al's mom asks as he sprints out of the stopped funicular.

Al has pieced it all together from that story. The Von Helsing Fleet, which had been carrying the nuclear weapons, was no longer a threat to the Riah Republic, Libot colony specifically. That means that nobody had to fight anymore… and Bernie at that very moment is heading towards a highly dangerous, now pointless battle. Alfred had to stop Bernie from getting killed, no matter what! There was no need to fight anymore!

"Run, Al! Run!" Ruby shouted at the screen. Her arms flailed as she gestured at the screen to try to have Al run faster.

"He has to make it! Right, Ren?" Nora asked her partner, concerned.

Ren frowned. "I don't think he'll make it in time on foot…"

Bernie's Zaku II Kai is now heading into battle, using its thrusters to slide over the colony's massive windows that allowed sunlight to get in. In his hands is the heat hawk, ready for battle as the score swells to dramatic heights.

"He doesn't have to fight now!" Al thinks to himself as he's running. "I gotta stop him! I gotta let him know!" As Al runs across the street, he's then nearly hit by a car, who only barely swerves to avoid him. Undeterred, Al keeps on running.

"Watch it, Al!" Weiss yelled.

"There's no time!" Yang exclaimed at Weiss. "He won't make it in time if he stops!"

Elsewhere, the Federal Forces commander that had run the battle against the Kampfer days ago notices what's going on as the Zaku II Kai approaches closer. "What the hell?!" he exclaims.

Christina herself is already dressed in her pilot suit, and is running towards where her still-damaged Gundam Alex is being held in the hangar. "Zaku II approaching the base, sir. ETA is in three minutes," one Federal Forces radar man reports to the commander.

"What's the armament count left on the Alex?" the commander then asks another subordinate.

"Just five-hundred rounds in the right arm, sir," a different EFF technician replies. He then adds, "The Riah Forces say that they're keeping out of this one!"

"Hrmph…" Ironwood grumbled. "I understand why they don't want to work with the Federation, considering how much damage they caused before. But still, they really should be on top of this new threat."

The commander grimaces to himself as Chris enters the cockpit of the Gundam Alex. "Lt. Mackenzie!" he orders over her comms unit, "Move out!"

Chris has a determined look in her eyes. "Roger!"

The Gundam's eyes flash and glow as the mechanical titan prepares to launch. At the same time in the forest, the timed smoke machines that Bernie and Al had placed earlier finally go off, coating the entire area with a dense layer of bright pink smoke.

"Hey, that's a lot like the smoke of my grenades!" noticed Nora. Her moment of elation at the coincidence turned to a frown shortly afterwards. She didn't want her favorite color associated with the bad things that were probably about to happen.

Al is closer to the forest now, and can see the massive cloud of pink smoke from the elevated road that he's on. However, he's still far off from where the battle is about to commence. The Zaku II Kai's monoeye scans the area just as the Gundam Alex lands to face it off.

"There it is!" Bernie says to himself.

Christina wastes no time in opening fire with the remaining ammunition in her right arm gun. Bernie dodges the bullet fire as he continues to pilot his mobile suit along the colony's window, leading the Gundam Alex to where he can fight it on even ground. "Come on, aren't you gonna follow me!" he growls.

Behind him, the Gundam Alex only stops for a moment before hopping down onto the window to give chase. Bernie smirks at this intended development. "There you go, that's a good boy!"

"Both units are headed for the foothills, sir," a technician says to the EFF commander, still observing the situation from his command room.

The commander himself lifts his radio handset to him mouth and barks, "Lt. Mackenzie, fall back now! You have the advantage on flat ground!"

"Foothills have no civilians," Chris calmly says over her comms.

"What?!" yells her commander.

"I'm headed for the forest!" Chris then declares, activating her boosters to fly after the Zaku II Kai.

"Lieutenant, fall back!" the commander orders, but it falls on deaf ears.

"Well, at least she's doing the right thing and not getting more people hurt this way…" Ruby commented, trying to find a positive in the dreaded battle to come.

"She's still disobeying orders," noted Winter. "Maybe the commander sees something she doesn't."

"You don't know that!" Ruby shouted, getting out of her chair to confront Winter.

Weiss grabbed at the hem of her partner's pajama top. "Come on, don't do this now, Ruby. It's not my sister's fault," she firmly stated.

Ruby gave what Weiss said a moment of consideration before sitting back down. But her complying with her partner's logic didn't make her any less upset.

Meanwhile, Al finally reaches a point where he can hop off the elevated roadside, and jumps down into the smoke-filled forest. The Gundam Alex also arrives in the forest, and Chris looks around for the Zaku II Kai. Spotting it, she inadvertently steps around one of the tripwired traps that Bernie and Al had set up, and begins to open fire on the distant silhouette of Bernie's mobile suit.

All the while, Al is wandering around the forest, desperately looking around as the sound of gunfire rings in the distance. "Bernie!" he cries out, before running deeper into the shrouded foliage.

The Zaku II Kai actives its heat hawk while Bernie himself gets his thumb ready over a remote detonator he's holding, waiting for the right moment to active at his trap.

Al cries out "Bernie!" again as he runs even closer to the ambush. However, his class go unheard as Bernie instead pushes the button on his detonator.

Al trips and falls as one of the traps blows open, revealing the giant inflatable Santa Claus balloon that the pair had stolen not too long ago. The Gundam Alex spins around and opens fire at the decoy, ripping the balloon to shreds almost instantly. All Al can do is stay close to the ground as large bullets fly only about a foot over his head.

The arms of Pyrrha's chair groaned under the stress of the sudden death grip the champion fighter suddenly put them in. Beads of sweat started to form on her forehead from the sheer stress of seeing Al only barely escape death. Her heart pounded in her chest like a jackhammer working on concrete. This was honestly the most stressful thing she had seen in a while.

"Bernie! Get away!" Al shouts out, but is unheard over the sound of gunfire.

Another cardboard box explodes, this time revealing a snowman balloon that similarly gets ruined by sustained firing. The smoke that had been obscuring the area drifts away on the wind, letting Christina see what she had really been shooting at.

"What the- Huh?!" Chris starts to ask herself, but is cut off by Bernie's Zaku II Kai coming at her with the heat hawk.

The Gundam Alex opens fire on the Zaku II Kai once more as it raises its arm for a chopping blow with the heat hawk. A few of the bullets collide with the center mass of Bernie's mobile suit and penetrate the armor, letting the bullets into the cockpit. A bullet smashes into the back wall of the cockpit, only inches away from Bernie's head. Shrapnel coming off of the ruined machinery embeds itself into the side of Bernie's face as he screams out in pain.

At the same time, the heat hawk manages to chop the Gundam Alex's right arm completely in half lengthwise, disabling its gun. The Federation mobile suit then reels back from the blow, allowing the Zaku II Kai's heat hawk to get in another blow, this time slashing the Gundam Alex across the center of its torso. Christina also cries out in agony as the shrapnel from the blow bloodily shoots itself into the right side of her body.

"BERNIE!" Ruby screeched, grabbing onto Weiss for comfort. Unbeknownst to her, Weiss had also latched onto Ruby at the same time, and for much of the same reason.

"Don't kill him!" Pyrrha pleaded with the screen.

At the same time, Jaune shouted out "Christina, no!"

Nora, meanwhile, had grabbed Ren's hand in a crushing grip. He was trying his best to deal with the sudden pain from it. Although for him, it was hard to tell if the sweat forming on his brow was from trying to repress the pain, or from the stress this fight was causing him.

"ARRGHHHH! This is such BULLSHIT! They don't need to fight!" Yang furiously cried, kicking the seat in front of her. This emotional pain sure wasn't feeling great. In fact, it was hurting enough to pop off her Semblance, causing her eyes to turn red and her hair to burn brightly with energy.

"I know…" Blake muttered, agreeing with Yang. By now, she was silently accepting what the final outcome was probably going to be.

Both Bernie and Chris clench their teeth in suffering as they both finish reeling back from their respective wounds. The Zaku II Kai readies another strike from the heat hawk, while the Gundam Alex reaches towards its back pack to grab the handle of its beam saber.

Al, who can now see what's happening not too far from him, screams "Stop it! Bernie!"

The heat hawk and beam saber clash together and bounce off of one another as their respective energy fields are repulsed. Bernie's Zaku II Kai nearly tumbles over from the sudden clash, but then uses its thrusters to right itself and launch itself in a tackle towards the Gundam Alex. Both machines uncontrollably slide downhill as Al starts to chase after them.

"Bernie!" Al shouts once more. However, he isn't paying attention to where he's running, and trips over a tree root. He accidentally joins the Gundam and Zaku in tumbling down the slope.

The two mobile suits careen downhill into another one of Bernie's tripwires, this time causing a large explosion. The Gundam Alex uses this opportunity to use its thrusters to fly backwards, making the Zaku II Kai stand up and chase after it on foot. However, it sustained large damage in the struggle, and now the left arm is lying on the forest floor uselessly.

Al picks himself up off the ground and chases after the ongoing mobile suit fight. "Bernie! Get away from here! You don't have to fight anymore!"

The Gundam Alex manages to stop its movement by bumping into one of the buildings at the Earth Federation Forces' "hidden" base, the running fight having taken it all the way back there. The Zaku II Kai is right behind it, pushing trees out of the way as it finds its target.

Bernie is panting heavily in his cockpit, blood streaming down his face. Christina is doing much the same, with the large wound on her arm strained crimson and looking ragged. Their weapons glow with the intent of battle, with the heat hawk's blade turning a bright orange hue and the beam saber emitting a bright pink blade of energy.

"Don't do this! Don't do this!" pleaded Pyrrha. She didn't want to accept the terrible outcome that was going to happen. Under her grip, the wood of her chair's armrest was starting to crack.

Jaune tried putting a hand on Pyrrha's shoulder to calm her down, but his own stress was causing him to grip too much that he got a fistful of Pyrrha's pajama shirt more than anything.

Al finally clears the trees of the forest, seeing exactly what is about to go down. "Oh no…" he mutters to himself as he sprints towards the two mobile suits.

Nora buried her face in Ren's shoulder. She couldn't bear to look at what was about to happen.

The Gundam and Zaku each prepare to strike. The Gundam Alex goes first, using its boosters to jet itself towards its enemy. Inside his cockpit, Bernie lets out an angry war cry as he lunges towards his target, the Gundam.

Al sprints as hard as he can. "Bernie!"

Time seems to slow as the Gundam and Zaku are about to hit each other. Al is fruitlessly running towards his battling friends, too late to stop it all. In one fell swoop, the heat hawk of the Zaku II Kai comes down on the head of the Gundam, decapitating it and shearing off a shoulder in the process. At the same time, the Gundam Alex impales the cockpit of the Zaku II Kai, with the beam of the saber traveling clean through all the armor and metal of the Zeon mobile suit.

That moment in time lingers, freezing on a moment of pure despair as Al gasps in shock. It was too late.

A second later, the Zaku II Kai violently explodes, the beam saber having hit vital components to Bernie's mobile suit. The explosion causes the now-destroyed Gundam to be blown backwards, and Al himself to be flung dozens of feet away before his flight is stopped by hitting a tree trunk.

By now, both Ruby and Weiss clung to each other and tried their hardest not to cry. It wasn't working, since their cheeks were red and stained with the marks of their tears.

Pyrrha slammed her right fist down on her armrest, breaking it in two. She then stood up and briskly walked away to the corner of the theater, trying to not let the others see her tears. Jaune himself was openly weeping, but followed after his partner regardless to try and comfort her the best he could.

Ren deeply frowned and lowered his head at the sight. He then made sure to activate his semblance to try and calm down Nora again, but given how she was still clinging to his arm and not bringing her face back up to see the screen, it was taking quite a bit of effort to take effect.

"FUCKING! SHIT! FUCKING! ASS! ARRGGHHHH!" Yang shouted, kicking the seat in front of her so hard that her foot went clean through. "I HATE THIS! DAMN IT! IT'S NOT FUCKING FAIR!"

Blake started rubbing small circles on Yang's back as her blonde partner then hunched over in despair. "I know, I know… But, Al will carry on Bernie's memories, right?"

"It's just not fair…" Yang said lowly to the floor.

Ironwood and Winter observed the scene in respectful silence. Even if Bernie didn't have to die in the end, he still fought for what he believed would save the colony. There was a mutual respect among soldiers that made them understand that sacrifice. It was a small way to try and cover up the bitter truth of war. The pain of loss was still there, but there was at least some honor to it.

Roman and Neo, on the other hand, gave a small ovation to the scene. "Man, now that was a good fight! Bernie really did pull a fast one on that girl!"

"He still died though," Neo observed.

Roman shrugged. "Sure, he died a chump's death, but at least he did something fun beforehand. Not bad, my blonde pilot guy. Not too bad."

As rescue services arrive, all Al can do is stare blankly at the now-flaming wreckage of the Zaku II Kai. Bernard Wiseman is dead, all because he fought a battle that didn't need to be fought in the end.

"How's Lt. Mackenzie?" the Federation commander asks, having arrived on the scene.

"Alive, sir!" an EFF soldier reports. "Just unconscious!"

"What about the Zaku pilot?" the commander then asks.

A different soldier replies, "Nothing left, sir! A pile of hamburger!"

"Oh, now that's just mean," Blake hissed. Now that she thought about things, all of those times that Bernie was eating burgers in the show was just foreshadowing for that line. It was a clever, albeit super mean, moment of writing on the show's part.

As Al continues to stare blankly ahead in shock, a soldier walks up to him and kneels down. He takes his hand and tries to shake Al out of his stupor. "Hey kid, are you okay? What the heck are you doing out here, anyway?" he asks. There is no response.

In the corner of Al's vision, he sees an ambulance pull up next to the crashed Gundam Alex, where soldiers are trying to haul Christina out of it. Al can't help but lowly gasp and whimper in horror at the sight.

"C'mon kid, you alright?" the soldier then asks.

Off in the distance, Professor Lumunba orders around the soldiers trying to rescue Christina. "What are you doing?! Get a stretcher, quickly!"

The rescuers have now hooked up a rather bloody Chris to an IV of plasma and are carefully pulling her out of the wrecked cockpit. "Come on, easy now…" one of them instructs to the other.

Al recoils from the sordid sight up against the tree.

"Whoa now, easy kid…" the EFF soldier than says to Al, reaching out to him in an attempt to calm him down. "Hey, hey come on kid, won't you snap out of it?"

By now, another soldier has walked up to see Al in a rather sad state. "Medic!" he calls out. The soldier tending around and also calls out for help. "Come on, hurry!"

The scene fades out to black, before we focus on the media disc that Al left at home, the one that Bernie had instructed Al to take to the authorities just in case. On it is a video that Bernie had recorded earlier, addressed to Al.

"Al," Bernie begins the video with. He is sitting in front of his Zaku II Kai. "Okay, listen carefully."

In the video, Bernie picks up and shows the camera the package that he had given Al previously. "In this package, you'll find a full-taped confession, and all of the evidence. I just want to explain just why this colony has been targeted for nuclear attack. It's important that if I die, you take this to the police. If you can get an adult to believe you, the colony can still be saved. …You're probably wondering why I just didn't take this to them myself."

Bernie sighs and lowers the package. "Well, you see… You have to understand, it would've been like running away. If I ducked out of fighting now, I don't think I could've ever lived with myself. It's not like I hate the Federation or anything, or that I want to avenge the captain and the others… I'm not sure how to put it. You see… I need to fight the Gundam now. Maybe it's because I'm a soldier. I really don't know the reason why."

The posture of Bernie straightens, and he looks directly into the camera. "Hey, Al. I'm most likely going to die. But, whatever happens, don't hate the Gundam pilot, and don't go hating the Feddie soldiers. Because they're like us, you and me. They're just people simply doing what they think is right, that's all. I know that it's hard, but try not to hate them. And don't blame yourself either, okay? Please Al, this is all I ask."

Winter nodded sagely along to what Bernie had to say. "A lot of people think that we're a kind of monolith. But really, people like us are just those who want to do the right thing. It doesn't matter if we're soldiers or Hunters. The will to do what's right is all that matters."

"Well said, Specialist Schnee," lauded Ironwood. He couldn't have said it better himself. He also made sure to pointedly ignore Roman's rather loud scoffing at what Winter just said. It wasn't worth it anymore to argue with the thief.

Leaning on his knee, Bernie then smiles. "With any luck, if I do manage to get out of this alive and the war ends, I'll visit you. I'll come back to this colony, that's a promise."

Bernie flashes a thumbs-up. "See ya, kid! Well, I guess that's it. Take care, Al! By the way, say hi to Chris!"

"Yeah, that's just real great, show…" Yang seethed. "Yeah, go ahead and twist that knife, you piece of shit!"

Bernie's final words just made Ruby and Weiss cry even harder. Droplets flowed seemingly endlessly from their faces, as if repeating one instance of crying over and over again. It was like seeing the tears of time, those tears of anguish lasted for so long.

The deceased soldier of Zeon gives the camera a salute, before getting up and walking off-screen to turn off the recording. Those were the last recorded words of Bernard Wiseman. The screen cuts to black as the video fades to a static screen.

By now, Jaune had managed to coax Pyrrha to sit back down with everyone else. As the blonde knight led the amazon back over to her seat, she kept on wiping tears away with her sleeves.

"How's Pyrrha holding up?" Blake ask, still rubbing Yang's back. Needless to say, everybody who mattered wasn't taking this finale very well. Still, it didn't hurt to ask.

Jaune gave a small shake of his head as he sat back down. However, Pyrrha decided to answer for her sudden outburst.

"I-I'm sorry… I just feel like… I… I don't want to watch this anymore," Pyrrha offered in explanation, between wiping away her tears. She didn't want to think about the implications this show offered. If Bernie was really like Jaune, and if she was like Chris, would that mean she may have to kill Jaune one day? Pyrrha honestly believed that she couldn't live with herself if she had to. There was so, so much she wanted to say to him before they both shuffled off the mortal coil, and the thought of her being the cause of things being left unsaid was gnawing at her like a black hole in her stomach.

Blake gave Pyrrha a nod of understanding, before focusing her attention back on Yang. Everyone in the theater, short of Roman and Neo, would need some real time to process what exactly they were feeling, to say the least.

"Al? Al!" Alfred's mother says as she wakes up her son. "What's wrong? You were yelling in your sleep."

Groggily, Al says "I… was dreaming, mom. What time is it anyway, is it late?"

"It's about 8:30," his mom says, opening up his room's windows. "And it's absolutely beautiful out today, like God blessing the first day back to school!"

Life resumes for Alfred Izuruha. He sits at his kitchen table in silence, watching his mother make breakfast. A light breeze is coming through the open windows, and the sky is bright and shining in the morning.

"Honey! I can't find a towel anywhere!" Al's dad says as he walks into the kitchen in his pajamas, his face wet from washing.

"What're you doing?" Al's mom chides. "You trying to fill the kitchen up with water?"

Al's father grabs the bottom of Al's mother's apron and starts to dry his face with it. "Just a sec…" he mutters.

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Al's mom huffs.

Al watches the perfectly normal domestic scene in silence. A nearby newspaper on the table declares the date to be January 14th 0080, and the headline is announcing the formal surrender of the Principality of Zeon to the Earth Federation. It has now been a few weeks since the pointless battle between the Gundam Alex and Bernie's Zaku II Kai, and now that the One Year War is officially over, it might as well have never happened, for all that it accomplished.

"Life goes on," Ironwood commented.

"And yet it gets so heavy," added Winter.

Ironwood sighed. "It certainly never does get any easier…"

The Izuruha family continues its breakfast peacefully, with Al's dad reading the newspaper and drinking coffee, and both Al and his mom finishing up their drinks.

"Al, you better get running along. You don't want to be late!" she reminds Al.

"Uh-huh…" Al mumbles.

As Al heads out of his front door, his mom asks from down the hall "Do you have your school bag?"

"Got it!" Al replies back. He puts on his baseball cap and heads out the door. It still has the badge that Bernie gave Al all those weeks ago on it. "See ya later!"

"Michiko, does our son seem quiet to you?" Al's dad asks to Al's mom. "Or do you think he's just maturing?"

"Al will never be the same…" Pyrrha sobbed.

Roman shrugged. "I dunno, I've seen some pretty fucked up shit, and I turned out fine. I'm sure the brat'll be fine."

If looks could kill, Jaune and Pyrrha's collective glares would've not only murdered Roman, it would probably also kill a dozen alternate version of him in the local multiverse cluster.

"Hmm…" Al's mom utters in thought, thinking of an answer.

Outside, a familiar voice calls out to Alfred. "Al!"

Al looks over and sees Christina walking over to him. Her parents are standing out on the front porch, waiting with her luggage. Chris herself is wearing a new set of nice clothes, and her arm is still in a sling due to the injuries sustained in battle all those weeks ago.

"I'm glad I caught you!" Chris says. "I was hoping to see you before I left. I've been transferred back to Earth."

Al is a bit dumbstruck by what Christina has just said. "Uhhh… so you're leaving?"

Chris nods. "Uh-huh, that's right. I wanted to be able to say goodbye in person. I'm sorry Al, I thought I was getting to stay too. I also wanted to say goodbye to Bernie too, but I won't have a chance. So, will you say goodbye to him for me? Better yet, just tell him I said hi, okay?"

Al visibly tries to hold back tears, before steeling himself and looking down at the ground. "I, uh, Bernie will be… will be… Bernie will be sorry that he missed you."

Pyrrha let out a wail and covered her face with the sleeves of her pajama shirt again.

"Fuck you, show! Fuck you!" Yang shouted at the void.

Christina puts a hand on Al's shoulder and smiles. "Hey Al…"

Alfred looks up, and Chris gently gives Al a kiss on the cheek. "Well, goodbye, Al," she finally says.

"Goodbye, Chris…" Al says back to her.

Later, back at Alfred's school, the student body is assembled in the activity yard, where the director of the school is giving a speech to all the students gathered in front of him. The school itself is still heavily damaged from the previous attacks, but that hasn't stopped the students from having to show back up.

"This long, terrible war is over, and peace has finally been restored. But along with the soldiers, their families, and their loved ones, this colony too carries deep wounds from their war. Yes, we've lost our school building, yet buildings can be rebuilt. More importantly, we've lost countless parents, brothers, sisters, and friends. This peace was one at the cost of many people's lives. I hope you all will never forget that for as long as you live. And when you grow up, I hope that you will work hard together to create a peaceful world, where a war like this will never happen again."

"And it does happen again. About five other times, if we exclude events not officially labeled as a war," the mysterious voice chimed in out of nowhere.

"You're not being a helpful host," is the most diplomatic way Ren could put what he was really thinking into words. The glare in his eyes really said it all.

"Yeah, thanks a lot, you asshole…" Yang spat under her breath.

"Meh, I'm not shocked," droned Roman. "It's the way of the world. People fight over shit all the time. Money, booze, women, ass, religion. It's all human nature. We just all want to come out on top."

Once again, Ironwood and Winter hated at how true Roman Torchwick's words were.

In the crowd, Al is surrounded by his friends. Chay and Telcott are clearly not paying attention, and look generally disinterested in what their school principal has to say. Dorothy is actually paying attention to the speech, but her attention is suddenly pulled away by what's happening next to her. Al himself has broken down into tears, openly weeping at the speech. It's all too much to bear. This peaceful world came at the cost of Bernie's life and his own innocence.

"Al, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" Dorothy asks, concerned for her frenemy. "Wait here, I'll get the teacher."

As Dorothy walks off to get help, Chay and Telcott turn to their crying friend. "Al, don't cry, come on! You know another war will start soon, and when they close the school, we'll be able to check out all the cool stuff. It'll be more fun than this time!" Chay says in a terrible attempt to calm Al down.

"Yeah," Telcott adds, "Chay is right! And we won't just find empty shells, maybe we'll find some live bullets. And soldiers might even give us their rations too!"

"They're the WORST EVER! OF ALL TIME!" Weiss sobbed out in anger, before going back to embracing Ruby. Her partner was the only font of comfort she could find the moment, after all.

As Dorothy arrives with the class' teacher, the shot zooms out away from Al's spot in the school yard, all the way out to the skies of the colony of Libot, and even past that to show the colony cylinder rotating out in the cold, black vacuum of space, intact as if nothing had ever happened to it. The final shot of the episode is a zoom out to show empty space, as the orchestral version of the main theme plays upbeat.

The credits of the show roll by, showing various pictures of children interacting with the war in various ways, along with the soldiers fighting it. School girls and a boy pose for a photo in the hand of a Zaku II. A young boy watches a battle happen in space out of the window of the shuttle he's on. A family of refugees, including a son and a daughter, are sitting in the rubble of a building pockmarked with bullet holes. A boy poses next to an EFF soldier standing at a guard post, standing as straight as the guard and holding a toy gun. Children are using the crashed remains of a Zaku II as a way to dive into the sea. A lost child cries as soldiers pass him by. Two children play with their dog on a beach. A little girl is being pulled through a spaceport by her mother. A boy poses on a damaged crosswalk sign. Two small boys are happily showing off bullet casings they found to the camera. EFF forces run into battle on Earth, with a Zaku II firing an assault rifle in the background. A girl looks down at the bleeding corpse of a dead Zeon soldier. A teenager holds a crown of flowers over her head and smiles. A boy draws a doodle of a mobile suit battle on the armor of a crashed Zaku II.

And finally… Al and all of his school friends are holding up a banner in happier times, wishing us all a happy new year.

"Fuck this show!" Yang yelled. "It sucks and it hurts!"

XXX

And there you have it! The finale of Gundam 0080, along with those juicy reactions! I hope they lived up to your expectations. I certainly feel like this is what would happen if the RWBY cast saw this show, but I can't say that all of you would agree with me on that. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little experience of mine! But don't tune out just yet, we've still got some final thoughts and an epilogue to wrap things up here. In the meantime, feel free to let me know what you guys think about Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket. On my part, I'll freely admit that the emotional pain is still super real, no matter how many times you watch it. Bernie's video at the end always gets me.

Anyways, this has been The Draigg, and I'm signing off for now!