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[sub][color=Silver][i]The Siege of Amone, September 12th - [b]Taking lives[/b][/i][/color][/sub]
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[color=Silver]	More gunfire had engulfed the local area. The equivalent size of another squad had reached the inn's traumatic dispensary of blood and joined the outrage of the battle. Two automatic gunners had already set up either side of the inn, one at the entrance and one near the exit that the civilians had previously evacuated from, making them pinned between a rock and a hard place. Every now and then, the chiselling of brick and wooden walls were caved in with small circular holes from which bullets entered through. Glasses upon tables were shattered by the stray pathways of gunfire. Jean pinned down his head as close to the ground as his squat would allow him, the palm of his hand fully pressing down against the top of his reliable helmet. Several Federation soldiers who'd tried to assist Luke in his evacuation soon found themselves peppered and dropped to the ground quickly, their blood and backs slumping against tables and other walls that were yet to be tainted. Jean's breath drew frantic once more. Alongside the suppressive wave of automatic gunfire, several more accurate shots of precision spewed from the metallic mouths of Imperial rifles. Those who'd been lucky enough to secure gas masks from dead Federation soldiers were already taking the initiative to exact a bloodthirsty revenge, tearing at those who were intact. Shouts outside sometimes indicated that perhaps the few civilians who were caught in the crossfire inside were not valid targets and were supposed to be focusing on those inside, those who were armed and apparently responsible for such a violent outburst. It was a day to live forever within Jean's mind; it was a violent day of infamy and collapse. Jean's heart was bled dry of all peace once the gas had fallen, but the additional battling of the Imperial remnants and the Federation stragglers felt more like sandpapering the wound and preparing to operate upon it with unsanitary medical tools. How did something so quiet and so tranquil blow so quickly out of proportion? The cloudiness of the room had now besieged all hope of clean air pockets inside, and had proven that nowhere was ultimately as safe as they'd expect.

	For a moment, Jean felt himself relax, his muscles almost sank back into their bones as a strange urge to act subverted his own expectations. Jean's eyes drifted towards the corpse of one of the unnamed Federation soldiers, only identified by the round metallic disk tucked beneath his shirt collar. There was no time to really identify the dead, as much as he wanted to, but something upon the body had caught his eye. Without thinking, Jean sprawled across the floor and began to drag himself along quickly, moving as fast as his body would allow him to. As he kept on moving, Jean's head and face turned towards the rest of the group aggressively, filled with frustration and agony. For some strange reason, the extraordinary fury within his tone was enough to break his usual character. Now, he'd finally settled into the mindset of an NCO, though only for just a second.[/color]

[color=Aqua][b]"Get out that back entrance now! No more time-wasting. You stay, you're dead. Go!"[/b][/color] [color=Silver]Jean finally reached the corpse of his desired prize and began to strip its webbing and gear. Strapped tightly by the tip of a carabiner was the familiar sight of an uninitiated Ragnite bomb. Jean had never handled one outside of the one-off training session, but this felt more than terrifying up close. He'd seen what these could do. At Hill 58, he'd ordered the devastating volley of ragnite bombs, one after the other, from his shocktroopers to a nerve-wracking effect, blasting through the sheets of skin and muscle beneath the Imperial uniforms. They had power, a lot of it, and were far more effective than the pre-ragnite handheld explosives previously prototyped back in the earliest days of mankind's major warfare. Ragnite was such a...strange mineral, of its sorts. It was mystical, unending in all its potential and possibilities. There were talks of it being used for medicinal use, and it was already a type of compound for the construction and movement of vehicles seen in both the military and homesteads behind the frontline. Once he had it unclipped, Jean fumbled around with it to find its ignition pin for future reference, then began to make the perilous journey of crawling back to the very same window he'd been holding out on. His mind was set on protecting those behind him, delaying the advance of the Imperial storm as much as possible. He didn't want to leave the building until every one of his own soldiers within his own squad had made an attempt to get out. This was his code, his honour, which was something he held very little of. Jean was a man of his word, and the day he told Reyna he would protect her and the squad with all he had was not a demonstration of lies and self-encouragement, it was him selling his life for theirs. Jean didn't intend on dying today, but he valued the lives of those around him far more. Hell, even Luke had been making an effort to evacuate civilians when no one else could, which was extremely inspiring of him.

	Pinned against the window once more, Jean tried to pique his vision once more and gently peer outside, trying to see where the machinegun was. So far, it was reloading, leaving only the riflemen on the ground to begin their push and make headway towards the porch. Fuck, this was it. Jean quickly jolted back down and lifted the ragnite bomb from his hands, wrapping a tight index-finger into the pin's metal structure and forcing it out with extreme panic. As the footsteps began to come nearer, the bomb's ignition was finally listed with the aura of its azure blue ragnite tone, leaving only one step left. Without much thought Jean tossed it over his head, outside the window, as hard as he could, hearing the sound of approaching boots halt for just a second as they screamed in panic, only to be followed by a cloud of dust and smoke. The force of the explosion tossed strange pockets into the gas' stance all over, throwing the gunfire into another state of temporary silence. Jean stood up, hoping that everyone had already began to leave, and made his own way towards the exit with a quick dash. And as his head went beneath the doorframe, sending him outside once more, Jean's breath became muffled once more by the foggy, unfertilised gas that intoxicated the streets. The escape was now.[/color]