Si vis pacem, para bellum

A/N: So this is my first attempt at a Grey's fic, and yes, I'm pretty sure that things like this have been done a gazillion times already, but blame the BBC, the Olympics/Paralympics and the awesome show that was on last night called "The Best of Men". It was really inspirational and now I understand the origin behind the creepy Paralympic Mandeville mascot! Yay!

All of my... knowledge… for this comes from video games, movies and such like. Therefore it is probably totally inaccurate and I apologise in advance if that is the case!

Please be gentle (cue snigger – I never say that) and enjoy (I do say that)!

Oh and disclaimer stuff – not mine, not profit, but just a little bit of fun? We'll see…

Prologue: Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori

The stereotypical 'pop pop pop' of controlled light rifle fire was immediately replaced by the unmistakable churning of chain fed machine guns, interspersed with the erratic crackle of the infamous AK-47 – terrorist weapon of the year, 2010.

This is what Arizona Robbins loved. She had only ever had one goal in life, and that was to be a marine. She was her father's daughter, a daddy's girl and worshipped the ground he walked on. Since before she could remember, Arizona had heard the pride in her father's voice when Colonel Daniel Robbins of the United States Marine Corps retold her grandfather's story, how he'd saved 19 men before he'd drowned after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour and brought down the USS Arizona - her namesake. And Arizona Robbins was determined to do it proud. That was her favourite story, and she wanted her father to talk about her with that same level of pride, to make her own stories.

"I NEED A SITREP ASAP, KAREV! WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT AIR SUPPORT?" Captain Hunt bellowed from beside her his voice hoarse from shouting.

They'd been on a routine patrol, boring really, that was until their company had been blasted from a not-so uninhabited derelict old steel factory. Ambushed, they'd scrambled for cover, thankfully, by some miracle, the company only sustaining a few shrapnel injuries that weren't immediately life threatening. The small farm house they'd commandeered, if you could call what really amounted to an abandoned stone shack that,had a roof terrace, with partial cover being provided by a low wall around the perimeter that Arizona guessed was to stop people falling off the roof, although she had no idea how that was supposed to help, they'd more likely trip over it and fall headfirst to a sandy, deserty death below than not.

"ROBBINS!"

The churning of machine gun fire continued, drowning out all other noise until the clip came up empty with a tell-tale click.

"ROBBINS! LIEUTENANT ROBBINS!" Arizona snapped her head around, eyes suddenly being filled by a very red, very angry looking, sand covered Captain.

"I NEED EYES ON THAT RPG, ROBBINS, WEAPONS FREE, WHEN YOU SEE 'EM, YOU LIGHT 'EM UP, GOT IT?"

"YES SIR" Arizona responded in kind, her AUG HBAR already set up in front of her, resting on a small upturned plant pot placed in a small hole that had long since crumbled out of the terrace wall, lifting the rifle into the perfect elevation to make contact with the infested building, and the perfect shooting height in her current prone position.

"CONTACT LEFT, CONTACT LEFT, NORTH EAST SIDE!" The sound of a radio blaring declared, but it did nothing to interrupt Arizona's concentration as she positioned herself at the sights of her rifle. She'd already taken down countless hostiles wielding RPGs and sniper rifles with her baby, never seeing anything past the weapon in her enemy's hands; because that's the only way you can do it. Start thinking about everything outside of the here and now, it got you killed, or worse, got your friends, your fellow soldiers, the people whose backs you're supposed to have, killed. In battle, it's either you or them, so you'd better get your head in the game or get praying.

"HOMESTEAD, THIS IS SANDBREAKER ACTUAL WE'RE GOING TO NEED AN ETA ON THAT AIR SUPPORT, REPEAT WHERE IS OUR AIR SUPPORT?!" Hunt continued to yell his tone becoming ever more enraged.

"CAS IS INBOUND, ETA 5 MINUTES FROM YOUR CURRENT LOCATION, REPEAT, CAS IS INBOUND." An eerily calm voice from the other end of Hunt's transmission replied. Definitely not the news they were looking for when ammo was running low.

"Fuck…" Hunt growled, slamming himself into the sand as another shell passed perilously close to their heads.

"You got eyes on that shooter yet Robbins?"

Arizona ignored her Captain, she was the best shot in the company, man or woman, she'd even earned herself the title of Hawkeye by her fellow Marines, and having her superior pressuring her to make a shot wasn't going to make finding the little shit any quicker. The inside of the building was shadowed by the sun, it was impossible to make a shot until…

"You got him Hawks?" The soft voice of her spotter, Teddy Altman, penetrated the ambient gunfire that had surrounded this god-forsaken hellhole corner of bum-fuck Afghanistan for about 2 hours now. "I got jack shit."

"Just gotta…" Arizona drawled, licking her cracked lips before an intense flash of light flew past her retinas.

"There." She whispered, releasing a steady breath.

In the same instant the flash appeared, Arizona squeezed off a round, the power of her HBAR sending a deafening crack above the cacophony of less powerful weapons fire and a reassuring, familiar buck into her shoulder. Arizona watched as the round hit her target at centre mass, a ragdoll of a body falling forwards out of the open window as the RPG shell exploded about 60 metres short of the house.

"Nice shot!" Teddy whooped, patting Arizona on the back after seeing the exact same image as Arizona had through her spotters lens. "I knew we called you Hawkeye for a reason!"

Arizona extricated herself from her rifle, grinning at her best friend and partner in crime, the leggy, blonde, tactical specialist, Theodora Altman.

"Well… I am the best." Arizona smirked, getting a firm punch to the arm in reply as she pulled her canteen from the holster on her thigh.

"And you're so modest…" Teddy replied, barking out a laugh as Arizona shoved the canteen hard into her friends chest, a devilish grin gracing her lips.

"RPG!" A shrill shout announced, not meters from their position. Arizona's eyes snapped up at the noise, all hint of frivolity gone in an instant. Sure enough, Arizona saw a similar muzzle flash to the one she'd witnessed not 2 minutes ago.

'Where the hell do these guys keep coming from? And where the hell do they keep getting these RPGs?!'

This was different though. Usually you could hear the shell whizzing through the air, getting deeper as it fell, or got further away and you could always see a faint trail of smoke left by the ordinance, but this time, Arizona didn't see anything. And she had the eyes of… well… A hawk.

"Teds…" Arizona said slowly, her mind finally putting all of the morbid pieces together.

"TEDDY!" Arizona screamed, grabbing her spotter by her tactical vest and practically throwing her down the stairs into the safety of the house below.

Seconds later, Arizona felt the floor beneath her shake, followed immediately by the heat of a thousand suns burning through the skin on her right arm, the right side of her face; then weightlessness – almost as if she was flying – and darkness.

"ARIZONA…" A familiar voice screamed sounding a lot like Teddy, but it was too far away and Teddy was right here… Her ears were ringing something rotten, but the voice still seemed too far away… Arizona was faintly aware she was laying on her back, but didn't feel hot anymore, like she did day and night in this place, she didn't feel fatigued, didn't feel the sandy concrete beneath her, or the burn of the sun as it heated the hilt of her father's old hunting knife at her hip that she took with her on every sortie.

"ARIZONA!" The voice said again, only this time it sounded even further away, and almost as if Teddy was crying, but Teddy never cried. The only time she could remember Teddy being like this was when Tim…

Using all of her strength to look down at her legs, Arizona saw what looked like a mixture of blood and sand covering the lower half of her BDUs. But she hadn't been hit, she felt fine, she couldn't feel…

"THIS IS SANDBREAKER ACTUAL, WE NEED A CASEVAC ASAP, REPEAT ASAP, WE HAVE AN OFFICER DOWN."

The sound of her superior officer was overwhelmed by the hugest explosion Arizona Robbins had ever heard in her entire life, followed by the whoosh of jet engines above her. Air support…

Arizona never felt the aftershocks the collapse of the enemy stronghold caused.

Oh shit…

So maybe it was dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori, but that didn't mean that it didn't feel like shit.

A/N 2: Soo, yes, Dulce et decorum est is from Wilfred Owen's poem of the same name/ Horace's Odes (whichever floats your boat), and translated basically means, 'it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.' Agree? Disagree? Tell me! Like the story? Hate the story? Tell me! Reviews are like crack to fanfic writers, and we are all addicts.

Thanks for reading, and have an awesome day ;)