Author's Note: Last chapter! Hope it's depressing enough. Just kidding. It's a little rushed, but I wanted to get out what I had before I forget it all.

Eighteen long months dragged by, and we were out in the middle of nowhere, fighting a war with people that might have been our friends had it not been for some stupid unrest in civilization, in economy, in politics. I speak of it bitterly... it's true that you never realize how wrong something is until you're done doing it.

I have to admit, though, that we had our share of laughter and bonding. War always comes with that as well. But it makes the losses harder to handle.

The physical fight was over. I had survived. I was angry with myself knowing that I had survived and two of my best friends hadn't. It didn't matter that I had survived anymore. We were all supposed to come out of this together. It never really works out that way, though. Plain and simple.

No, not plain and simple. Nothing ever would be, nothing ever was. It's not like skating on ice; dealing with death was more than that. It's like pretending you're the happiest person in the world until you remember that you're the only one left.

Funeral time, right? Not the best event in the world, but for Banks and Charlie, I'd go everyday. I owe more than my life to them.

I've only been to one funeral in my whole life, and that was for a grandfather I barely knew. Now I'm at a funeral made for three.

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From the beginning, we had paired up with a check-in partner within our own team. We didn't want to lose anyone or leave anyone behind.

I was with Banks. And he had been our first loss... He was a statistic now, but he would always be one of our fighters.

We had just "won" our hour-long battle against the masked opponent. Our morale was high, yet we couldn't help but feel guilty at the same time. In silence, we had performed a routine search of all the things abandoned. We had one tank remaining to look through, and Banks had volunteered to do it. We had waited patiently; war was tiring.

"Uh, guys? You might not want to hear this, but there's a bomb in here!" he had yelled from inside the tank.

"Holy shit," I remember Dean muttering under his breath.

I glanced at the taller guy standing next to me. "Big surprise?"

"Never," he had replied.

Dwayne and I had hurried over to where Adam was, watching as he climbed with ease out of the huge machine.

"Is it on?" Dwayne had asked, clearly worried.

"Huh?" Adam returned, brushing dirt from his eyes. "Oh, no... there's nothing on or anything."

All of a sudden, we began to hear distinct beeping sounds emanating from within the tank itself. Adam's eyes went wide with fear at first, but he came to his senses in seconds and disappeared again through the opening.

"Adam! Get out of there, man!" I remember shouting at him.

In frustration, I had pounded on the exterior of the tank, trying to get his attention. I knew it wouldn't work, so I had decided to drag him out by hand. That didn't work either.

Inside the tank, he was busy trying to figure out to turn off the damn explosive device. I think he was either crazy or he had been caught up in the excitement of it all.

"Jesse! What the hell are you doing!?!?" Adam had yelled at me, as I tried to pull him out.

"Look at it, Banks! What do you think that is?!" I had screamed at him, the beeping sound becoming more urgent and loud with each passing minute.

He stared blankly at me for a moment, and then said, "Two more minutes! Just give me two more minutes to figure this out!"

"Two minutes?!" I had been too angry at the moment to try and sweet-talk him out of there. I should have beaten him over the head and dragged his body out. At least then he'd still be alive. "Two minutes?! This isn't a hockey game, Cake-Eater! The bomb's going to blast the both of us out of here in five minutes!"

In no time at all, we were down to the last two minutes; the deafening beeps were giving me a headache.

"Let's go!" Banks had finally yelled in my ear, out of exhaustion and fear. He had scrambled out of the chair and forced me out first.

I looked back for a moment to see if he was following closely behind. He wasn't.

"Go, Jesse!" he had screamed from the tank. He was struggling to pull his leg out of something; he was stuck.

I swear my heart jumped into one of my lungs when the tank suddenly exploded into flame and bits of metal. I had been far enough not to get hurt, but Banks? He was gone. And I say that bitterly.

I had begun to run towards the bright orange of the fire, but someone had stopped me, grabbing a handful of my shirt and pulling back. I turned around, breathing heavily and almost crying out of shock.

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Adam Banks had been one hell of a maniac. I don't think he was even human. He lived for hockey and the Ducks... from the very time he had taken a hit for us from the Hawks to the loyalty he kept for the Ducks while he played with the Warriors. True Duck? Yeah, I'd have to say without any hesitation that he qualified as one. Always.

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I remember Charlie telling me that if only he could get through this war, he could do anything.

"You've already done everything, man," I had said.

"I don't belong here, though."

"None of us do. It's weird."

He had nodded in agreement, looking off into space. "Too bad this isn't an ice thing."

"What do you mean?"

"Imagine if we could have a war on ice. Half these people would be falling over twice as much as they actually pull a trigger."

I had laughed at his notion of the perfect war (if that makes any sense), but I knew that he had meant it. We all wanted an ice war. It had sounded funky when he had first said it, but now that I think about it, it wouldn't have been a bad idea.

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A week after Banks had literally died, we were all continuing to mourn, but none as much as Charlie. He had been the first to try and accept the former Hawk, and they had become fast friends, even with the few arguments along the way.

We hadn't been prepared for the invasion, though we had a feeling that something was coming. Charlie had felt it most of all.

When the invasion hit us, we had been packing up to move to another site out of fighting range. The sun was beginning to set; the darkness was falling upon our tired shoulders.

They had come out of nowhere, shooting guns every which and way that was possible. And wouldn't you know it... they got Charlie.

He had fallen where he was standing, bleeding from the chest. He had made no sound, and we hadn't seen him hurt until we noticed Dean pulling him out of the dusty battle zone.

We were all panicked, though we tried our best not to show it. We gathered our remaining bags and tents, tossing everything in the vehicles standing by. Behind the grounded boulders, Fulton and Goldberg were shooting back.

I sat next to Conway the whole time he lay under the makeshift hospital tent. He never moved from his spot either. The only thing he had said to me was, "Fly." And I would. I had promised him. And a Duck never breaks a promise.

Charlie hadn't let anything get in his way. But it also meant that he would never skate with the Ducks again. At least not physically.

_______________________________________

I noticed the whole crew standing over near a large oak tree as I walked toward the group of funeral-goers. It was raining again, as it had been the first day I reunited with the team.

"Hey, Luis," I said.

"Hey."

"Sorry about Alison..."

Not only had Charlie and Adam died from fighting, but Luis's wife had gone as well. She had been a nurse in Europe, fighting just as hard as our guys.

Luis hung his head as Connie and Averman put reassuring hands on his shoulders. "Yeah."

"Is that your girl?"

"The one and only," he smiled down at her.

I crouched down to talk to a small, brown-haired three-year-old with bright chocolate eyes. "Hi."

She hung onto her dad's hands. "Hello," she smiled shyly.

So, this was what we lived for.

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That night, I packed my bags one last time, and hailed yet another cab.

"Stop it here, please," I told the driver.

I stepped out onto the hard and worn pavement. I made my way slowly into the cold building, and wondered where we would have been now without the war, without Eden Hall, without the Junior Goodwill Games.

Ten minutes later, I was out on the ice. That was the best place to be; it was our shelter.

I heard a laugh behind me. "This is fate or something, man. Maybe we should all just go join the Ducks and make it easier on ourselves. Then we wouldn't have to chase each other and hope that one day we'll run into each other," Russ suggested jokingly, followed by Portman and the others.

"How'd you guys get here?"

"Same way you did."

I wish we all could have stayed there.

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From "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind...

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From the soul of a fighter:

We were at times lost, at times hungry for our world

Outside of war. Yet all we knew to live for

Was today. There was no telling

When one life would end, and when another would begin.

That's the brilliant mystery of it all.

I remember thinking, when I was out there,

Bloody, tired, thirsty...

I would keep in mind what I was doing this for.

For my friends... our flock, our herd, our stampede in the sky.