This chapter is up fast because I wrote it the day I started the story so I just made a few minor adjustments to it and here it is!

It's a lot shorter but still a little crucial, a transition chapter!

Phase 23: Meiko Virea

I sat there in that moment watching a counter turn and I saw my life flash before my eyes. Do you blame me for ending it all? Do you blame me for the things I have done? Do you blame me for all those who have killed or been killed? For I have been so easy to blame my entire life. The only comfort I ever took is that maybe one day I would die and it would all be over but something had always kept me from pointing a gun at myself but now I was finally free to end it, to end all of it.

When I was a child I used to look outside at the sunset wherever I was posted in the world and wish that I would die in my sleep and that this sunset I was watching would be the last one my eye would ever have to see. As I grew older I began to wish that the promise of the sun would be real in my life, that maybe a light would shine on me and save me.

It's all coming back to me now that it's almost over. I do not deserve the love of those that have come into my life but still they give it to me so unselfishly. What is it that has brought them to this? Uzumi didn't give up on me even though I had destroyed every protection around him, leaving him vulnerable and easy to kill. Yaro may have fought to destroy me but in that last instance he began to see me for who I really was and he still loved me. Something about me had captivated him, something even I haven't unveil. Is it that I am a good person though I have done so many wrong things? Was there something within me that was ultimately filled with light? If there is it must be a genetic force that I have no control of.

"MEIKO!" As he broke through, one last moment in time as I floated into nothingness. The moment when my poor lost soul was finally freed. Would I really find freedom in this death or would my spirit forever be wandering searching for redemption? Would destroying this monster of a machine and weapon finally atone for all the other things I had done or was it only the beginning of a stream of mad attempts to end it all? Would I go on, even in death? Or would I be freed? And the final question one I've tried not to think about, what if I survive?

I fought for so long. So hard. I lived a life of fear and danger trying so hard to understand the reasons why I was born into this world and now I can see so clearly. I lived in blindness, not that any of it was my fault.

I grew up in ROW always trying to have a normal life but then being forced into something else. I have one memory of my mother. I remember when I was a small child she came to me one day with something in her hand. She tenderly placed the heart necklace around my neck and kissed my forehead before turning and walking slowly out of the nursurey. She had so many tears in her eyes and I didn't understand anything back then. I remember crying and lifting my arms to her come and hold me but she never even turned to look at me. I couldn't follow her for I couldn't even walk so I just sat there crying. After that I remember people commenting that I learned how to walk quicker than most babies. Some people who knew me then said I would often run out of the nursery and scream for my mommy to come back but she never came. I never knew her and I never even thought about my father because I had no memory of him at all.

There had been no one to comfort me in that time, which is perhaps the reason why I never really got close to anyone. I was afraid that they would leave me alone. I didn't trust anyone, even those to reached out to me because besides my mother there was Daniel and he had died to protect me a a child. He had defied Liene because he wanted me to live and he died as well. No one ever stayed very long in my life so I never expected them to which is why Uzumi's stubbornness finally broke through to me, because even in the end he never really left me.

When I was first sent on that mission to take down the eternal I thought it was just another mission but as I fought the ship I felt the unfailing resilience and faith of the people inside it. I couldn't bring myself to fight my hardest to destroy the ship because I had never felt anything so pure in my whole life. I longed for that purity and I felt it in the someone strange and familiar minds that touched mine.

In my spare time between battles I researched Lacus Clyne and the more I discovered the more I realized why Liene wanted her dead. She was what he would call and Idealist as she called for complete peace and restoration of the world in alliance and the end of war. Liene believed that war could only end when people took up arms and destroyed their enemies. But who were their enemies? That was something I could never understand. Did I, Meiko Virea, a child solider, a little girl have any enemies? I was most certainly the enemies of some but I never hated anyone except myself until Uzumi's death when I realized the truth. I hadn't even hated Liene or Manchester, I had felt sorry for them because of the seemingly empty lives they were leading. In a way I saw my own emptiness in their actions. They lashed out against things that they disliked while I let my dislikes continue to go on.

But I'd give it all away, everything I am. Everything I am for something more

Needless to say no one was ever there for me until I met Trey but even then I never let him be there for me. I didn't want to hurt anyone so I tried so hard to distance myself from them. When I went to ORB I was sure that it was a good thing because it would give me time to get away from Trey and it would give me time to understand my existence. While there all I found was confusion. I met Leyas, Uzumi and then I met Yaro. They were all good people, like I had never known before. Yaro had reached out to me as more than a friend and I had fallen into him arms before long. He made everything that I had hated so much about life disappear and in those moments I felt as if though I was someone more than Meiko the killer. I felt as though I could face anything in the world and though I would always have someone there beside me. I felt that life meant something more than just fighting, I began to see that in life you fall but there are always those who can catch you and set things right for you. I found it hard to believe I had gone on so long without that sense of security. Yaro gave me the love and peace I had wanted for my entire life and in my need to feel loved I had accepted it. I had been selfish in not thinking about what an attachment to him might cause, but I honestly didn't know I would ever have to face him or Uzumi on the battlefield.

It was before that battle that Liene had given me the new S System that would shape my complete destiny. When fighting with the S System I had no idea who I was anymore, I saw things that I couldn't explain and I went mad. It was terrorizing my soul and breaking my mind. The harder I tried to fight it the stronger it became. I almost killed Yaro, and then Uzumi broke through; in that moment the S System lost it's potency and I mastered my own mind because I truely did care about them. I stopped fighting Uzumi until Liene took complete artificial control and destroyed the one person who was able to convince me of the light within myself. I tried so hard to stop my actions as soon as I realize what was happening but the control Liene had over me through the beta of the S System was too much for me to handle as I underwent the emotional turmoil of thinking that I had caused Uzumi's death.

Uzumi tried to help me fight Liene's control as he began to realize what was going on through my frantic messages. In the end he couldn't break Liene's control over the Pain and my weapons. He was destroyed as I lost everything I had ever believed in. I had never wanted to fight but in that moment I realized the truth of what Mike had once tried so hard to tell me, I was the master of my destiny and I had a choice in how to live my life.

With that I choose...

The lonely road that will lead me farther from home.

I choose to willingly give my life.

I choose to save all those who I know believe in truth

I choose to be somebody.

I choose redemption.

I choose to erase the past.

I choose to bury my heart.

I choose to die.

For the world.

For myself.

Mostly for Yaro.

I was destined to be the greatest as many people said but I didn't want that destiny anymore. I'd give it all away just to have somewhere to run to, just to have someone to go home to. But I have no one and I never have had anyone. If I had left ROW earlier where would I have ended up? I would never have found my own light. So now I wonder what my life would have been like had my mother never left me. Had Liene never owned me.

Will my legacy go on? Is this the end forever, those moment that I live now? Or does it go on from here into a never ending journey of renewing. All I know is in this moment I am redeemed, I have killed in the past but today I kill one last time. I kill myself in order to allow all others to live.

I Meiko Virea look down on the world one last time and finally feel joy; and I can smile. I die free.

In this final moment one more question crosses my mind, and as the violet light envelops me I realized something more has awakened. I am succumbing to unconsciousness because of the poison, I realize I'm not dying I'm flying. Something is changing around me and this violet light is around me. As my eyes close and I fade to black I can't help but wonder; will I survive? Where will I go and what will I do if I survive?

Lacus Clyne looked around her in anxiety. The Eternal had successfully made it to ORB territory along with quite a few of the other ships. She was alive but the full report of who was lost and who was not had not come in yet. Lunamaria and Shinn had boarded the Eternal but now the Minerva was among those who were missing and her son Kiran was abroad that ship. It was a hard time for them all realizing what was happening and acting according to what was going on. The STING's destruction had not only caused the death of quite a few of the ROW ships and some of her own but the devastation was more widespread than that. It seemed a few fragments of the machine had hit earth, one smaller one had even landed in ORB.

When Meiko Virea decided to destroy the machine she must not have realized that something like this would happen. On top of everything else the Freedom barely made it to earth, Kira had survived and was now in the medical bay but the damage to the machine was considerable. He had been the closest one to the explosion and he had descended to earth while being exposed to the high heat of the STING. All this made her wonder what had become of the ROW troops and if any of them had really made it out alive.

"Lacus," she turned to see Andrew Waltfeld standing there.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Lady Cagalli and the council of ORB have given us permission to leave the ship," he said, "and Athrun wishes that you would go up to the mansion and wait for news of the Minerva."

"And what of the damage to the world around us?" Lacus asked, "are we to just wait and see what happens when all this is over?" She had watched an explosion the likes of she had not seen. The damage would be nothing compared to the Junius seven drop but she was sure that some nations would be effected. ROW had gone too far in creating that ship and they had thought of no one but themselves.

"Many radio lines are being effected by the interference of the debris in that atmosphere," he responded feeling his own anger about the whole situation they were in, "but we know things are due to clear up soon."

"Very good," Lacus replied, "tell Athrun that I will come up to the mansion after I have checked in on Kira, and tell them to notifiy me the minute we hear from the Minerva."

"Status report," Meyrin Hawke stood up examining her shaken crew. They had barely made it out of the blast without Shinn and Lunamaria and had landed somewhere in Lord knows where. She wondered how she would make it back to ORB without her two mobile suits, if they were attacked they would have problems.

"It seems our engines are fine but we have taken some damage," Kiran said reading off the report, "once the radio waves calm down we can figure out where we are. As it is now there is too much debris in the atmosphere and all around to figure it out." Meyrin clenched her fists thinking about it, she was in a tight situation with her crew but luckily she had Kira Yamato's son with her, she knew he would prove valuable in getting out of this situation. She examined the rest of the faces of her crew and smiled not wanting to seem to distressed.

"Well once we figure that out we will be able to head straight for ORB," she said with a cheerful voice but no one was fooled, their situation was not a good one.

"Milady," she turned to see Gren Trias standing behind her and she smiled at her young agent. He had been monitoring the work of the SR units for the past hour. She was anxious at the time that had passed and as the presence she felt had faded she wondered if they were already too late.

"Yes Gren?" she asked anxiously.

"The Honor has returned with the SR units," he began with a cheerful look that gave her hope, "and they found it." Her face lit up at the news.

"And is everything..." he cut her off.

"Mission success!" She held her hands up to her mouth as joy filled her, all the worry and all the doubt for nothing. Her mission was a success and everything had led to this.

Short and Sweet and I've met my summer target! YES I am so excited that I made it this far!

There's a lot going on in the story and my school starts in a few weeks so I am going to try and get to a better stopping point before then but once school hit's there is no telling how things will be.

Thanks for the REVIEWS and keep REVIEWING! REVIEW!

-WinterChill