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flash back begin ~~~///~~~ flash back end ~~~|||~~~ character change |.........||.........|

In the corner of the armory Spark sat, cleaning yet another riffle. Other than the sound of the knife running along the wet stone, and Spark cleaning, the room was dead silent.

The silence was broken when Spark spoke, "Zero.....I know for a long time I've been avoiding the details of my brothers death but...."

"I told you Spark, when you're ready, I'll tell you what happened that night, I'll tell you how your bother saved my life that night." Zero stopped sharpening the knife and placed both the wet stone and blade down, "but before I tell you what happened, do you believe I killed him?"

Spark was silent for a moment, a moment to collect himself. "Alright Zero, I...I'm ready to hear it, I'm ready to hear how my brother died saving your life."

~~~///~~~ (Told in Arada's point of view)

We had just burst into the field and taken down the small squadron, leaving the commander alive. We tied him up and took him with us, we knew he held vital Intel on the organization. We stole the truck he had rode in on and just headed south to friendly territory. I kept my foot on gas like my life depended on it, I guess you can say it did. Your brother was in the back making sure our prisoner was covered while he searched every radio frequency searching for friendly contact, even now I can still here him calling out to base, "this is Captain Mitch Dunning calling all friendlies in the area." I must have heard that over fifty times that day.

It wasn't until we were about twenty miles from base that we encountered the enemy once again. It seemed as if they had come out of nowhere, but two large enemy transport trucks drove out of the tree line blocking off our path. With no hesitation Blaze grabbed ahold of handle of the fifty Cal. and fired, killing all inside, even the drivers. It gave us the chance to drive around, but thanks to having to stop the enemy that was trailing us started to close the gap.

It didn't need to be said between us, but things started to look bleak. Blaze had fired half the ammunition in the gun and only had one reload, and against an entire army it meant we were screwed. However, our spirits lifted when we heard Gaparzo's voice over the radio. We told him we were being followed by enemy armament, and that we needed extraction and fast. we were told to divert ten miles due south to a large clearing. As I drove and Blaze manned the fifty, we heard the all to familiar sound of a black hawk helicopter fly over head, making it to the clearing before us. But what was music to our ears was the sound of a 20MM being fired from an Apache attach chopper, it wiped out all opposition allowing us to drop our guard, it's where we went wrong.

I started honking the horn of the truck like a man when we entered the clearing, we were home free, all we had to do was load the prisoner, get on board, take off and go home. Sadly we didn't get far, we made the stupid move of taking our eyes off the commander in the back and didn't notice he had been cutting his ropes with jagged piece of metal in the back. When he got free he produced a small .38, I'm guessing from his boot -another stupid move, we didn't pat him down before we took him prisoner- and when we stopped he took the advantage, stood and tackled Blaze out of the back. I immediately got out and assisted him, I got the commander off only to see him holding a gun pointed right at me. I took one on the shoulder. He was going to fire again, but Blaze had already gotten up and moved to cover me. When he covered me his back was turned to the commander. He took two shots to his back, right on the spine.

Now my anger was boiled over and I took your brothers pistol out of his holster and fired two shots into the commanders face, ending his life. Once the threat was neutralized, I heard someone running over to us, it was a gunner on the black hawk. He tried to help but I only handed him the gun, I was responsible for Blaze's life, I was going to be the only one to get him to safety.

Once I had him on the helicopter I did all I could to keep him alive, everything I could possibly do was being done. When we got to the base I carried him off, and Into the medical ward where we were both treated for our wounds. It felt as if two years had passed, when it had only been five hours before I heard anything about Blaze. They told us that the surgery was a success, but didn't know if he was going to make it threw the night.

~~~|||~~~

"So you see, by not taking that extra second of precaution, it was as if I myself pulled the trigger-" He was cut off by Spark holding his hand up to stop him.

"It was not your fault Zero, you two were in a hot zone and needed to move fast, I know it was your call to capture the commander but no one would have foreseen that he would have escaped. Even if he didn't have a weapon on him, he would have found some way to kill you." He lowered his hand, "I know were you in his position, you would have done the same."

Arada nodded to the assumption, "with no hesitation." He declared. "Do you remember the note I wrote out for Blaze write before he passed away?"

Spark nodded, "the you delivered to his son when you got back state side, why do you ask?"

"you remember the daughter my wife and I adopted right?" Spark nodded again. "Well about two weeks before my deployment I learned that my wife was pregnant again." there was a pause as Arada took a deep breath and reached into his breast pocket and pulled out two pieces of folded paper. "I wrote these on the ride over here, there's a note for my daughter," he showed the note that said Celty, "and one for my unborn child," the second piece of paper said peanut.

"And incase you don't make it back, you want me to deliver these to your kids?" Blaze said before Arada could say anything about it. "I'll do it for you, Arada," he held his hand out accepting the pieces of paper, "but when we all get back state side I'm ripping these things in half, and you, me, Martha, Rachel and our kids, and I guess shade and Jay can come," he let out a small chuckle, "we're all going to get together and have ourselves a good old fashioned Barbecue."

Arada laughed and shook hands with Spark, "it's a deal my friend." Arada stood looking at the clock and seeing a good amount of time had passed since he had sent off Jayden and Shade. "Come on, I want to see if Shade actually made an assessment or just hit on the tech. sergeant the entire time."

He got up to leave when Spark stood and asked him to wait, he walked over to Arada, "I know we've already discussed this, but since you told me how that night went, maybe you can tell me one more thing."

Arada turned to him, he had an Idea as to what Spark's question was, but wanted to here it from him. "Alright, what's your question?" He asked sitting back down, while Spark still stood

Spark took a deep breath before looking to Arada once again, "before my brother died," there was a pause, his voice had slight quiver in it, "what were my brothers final words?"

Arada sighed, he knew it was going to be that question, "are you sure you want to know this Carl?" Spark nodded. "I knew one day you were going to want to know," he grabbed his knife and unscrewed the bottom. He dumped out, into his hand, a tightly rolled piece of paper bound by a rubber band. "I wrote them down word for word before he passed away," He placed it into Sparks hand, "I'll go check on the kids, go ahead and stay here and read it." He screwed the small lid back onto his survival knife and slid it back into it's sheath. He walked out of the armory after patting Carl on the shoulder and closing the door behind him.

Carl sat down and rolled the rubber band off the piece of paper and slowly rolled it open,

To My little brother, I'm sorry that your reading this Carl, instead of hearing it from me directly. I wanted to say I'm sorry I was never that close of a brother to you. You were always trying your hardest to get us to do something as brothers, even just hang out on the weekends, and I would always push you away or tell you to simply leave me the hell alone. For that my brother, I truly am sorry. Mom always had told me that I should treat you better and that one day, when it was too late, that I would see the error of my ways, and wish I had more time to spend with you, become closer, and be the great big brother I'm supposed to be. I see myself finding her words to be more true than I had ever wished. So before I die, I just wanted to say that, even though as children I always saw you as a pest, I did love you Carl, no matter what, I loved you. You were my only brother in a family dominated by women, and you were my closest friend, I'm sorry for everything, Carl.

sincerely, your twin brother, Mitch

Carl sat at the table, tears running down from his eyes. "I love you too bro, the only man I ever loved." he rolled the paper back up, as tightly as it was before, and bound it together with the rubber band that had been on the paper before. He grabbed his survival knife and placed the note in the hollowed out handle and screwed the top back on top. "We never did get along brother, we were twins, but still we shared no common ground." He looked to the sky, "I forgive you Mitch. Everything that happened when we were children I forgive you for everything, rest in peace my brother."