Chapter 27: The Hour Draws Near

8:01 PM C.E.T.

"Preventers 2 and 3- Status Check." Team Leader Quatre whispers in a hushed anxious tone into his communicator watch. His cracking voice and clear blue eyes were trying their darndest to quit watching the milliseconds race past him like running water.

Time WAS running out and if the four agents he already had on the inside couldn't locate the terrorists' nuclear device within the next 11 minutes and quickly disarm it--

Well, that was when Plan B kicked in. Literally. Quatre was pretty sure that when it came to Miss Relena's welfare, Heero would--

"Wufei! What are you--?!" Quatre's hissed whisper at the comrade no longer at his side was one of shock. He and Wufei thus far had crept through the adjoining foyer room, remaining hidden and out of the sight of the---

Nine terrorists stationed in key areas of the main spiral marble stairwell. They are guarding that area pretty tightly so that must be where their nuclear device is in the vicinity of!

"If they don't have the bomb in their hands they can't detonate it. Come on! There's only nine of them. We can cover that easily." Wufei's words did have a certain logic to them, but Quatre was the kind to want all possibilities explored and covered before he blindly and dangerously raced headlong into a situation.

Wufei, however, was a different case entirely. The simple, most direct solution was always the right one to his mind, in his own black and white world.

Quatre watches in horror as Wufei slinks like a stealthy black snake into the shadows of the front hall. He blended into the tall bars of the stairwell, so covert and so unseen, that even cautious team leader Quatre had to give him some credit as he watches bouncing martial artist Wufei flip out over the stair. He knocks the four men guarding the table off their feet with a flying spin kick, knocking the ominous black briefcase off the table in the process as he scuffles with the men converging upon him.

No one seemed to want to open fire on their attacker, for fear of hitting the device near him--and perhaps detonate the nuclear device before they had a chance to escape to their underground shelter.

Either way, it's timer was about to enter the final sequence of a ten minute countdown--

In another minute or so....

"Duo! Trowa! I need backup! Main stairwell! NOW!" Quatre screams out. This was not at all the way he foresaw it in his head. But what do they say about the best laid plans of mice and men?

Quatre was about to prove that he was one of the latter and not of the former. Taking a hint from Lady, he uses the butt of his rifle to plow one of the scufflers on the floor with a broken jaw. He, too, was willing to utilize his weapon but Wufei was too intertwined with the villains to safely distinguish whose body belonged to whom.

And in the flash of a halted moment, Quatre too is pulled into the melee of flying fists and smashing kicks. Every hand, both good and bad, were desperately trying to keep the bomb out of each other's wanting grasps.

While the miscreant Wufei was holding his own fairly well against the now four terrorists on his back, petite framed Quatre R. Winner was losing and badly. A bloodied chin, an already blackening eye, and he was certainly glad to spot a particular dynamic duo (heh heh) come vaulting down the long staircase like Batman and Robin--

But in Quatre's eyes it was more like Batman and Superman. Indeed, Trowa Barton has superhuman abilities. This super boy, flying on the wind it seemed, comes almost gracefully pirouetting down the marble staircase. Each precise strong muscled leg and arm kicks the rest of the incoming terrorist who were already in midrace down the steps to aid their under attack comrades.

He knocks them right off the bannister and they flip off into unconsciousness.

Now, the Great Destroyer had his own twisted style of mortal combat. He scoops up two of the terrorists who were beating poor Quatre to a pulp by the scruff of their scarved necks and dances between the pair who were trying to deck him. He laughs, cackles and pulls faces at them as he continues to duck and bob and weave. This "artful dodging" God of Death taunted his enemies with everything from spicy words to a razzling tongue, until he gets them right where he wants them--

And the frustrated two terrorists punch one another out simultaneously when their punching bag Duo swiftly ducks straight down, braid trailing. Those two were down for the count.

"Heck! This is kinda fun!! Looks like Heero's gonna miss all the action on this one!!" Duo's triumphant mouth was always a little ahead of himself. He had a victorious smile on, from ear to ear as he helped Quatre up off the floor as Wufei and Trowa did the honors of putting the last two baddies down in his place.

"Not so fast, Amigos!"

There's only nine here! There's only nine! Damn it! Why didn't I see one was missing?!

Quatre's mind screams at his own error--an error that just may cost everyone's lives. So he clicks a button on his communicator wristwatch....

8:08 PM C.E.T.

"Back away from that black box. Now! Or I start killing hostages, five at a time!" Somehow, someway, during the fierce scuffle, the lead Epyon de Telos terrorist had slipped away from the group and broken into the secure hostage room.

His machine gun was ready to spray the fearful panicking crowd who were cowering as far back into the drawing room, away from this threat, as possible. They were all screaming and crying in fright. All of the crowd save for one courageous young lady.

"NO! Leave the innocent civilians out of this!" Relena Darlian's voice comes from the mass of people and she boldly takes a step forward towards the terrorist's loaded gun aimed right at her determined face.

"I will order them to cooperate and give that box to you. But only if you promise to leave these people alone." Calmly, decisively, the Foreign Minister makes a statement. Her very presence and steely blue eyes captured the stupified awe of every eye in the room.

"You can't expect me to--" The de Telos man skeptically begins to say but he too was captivated by her all-enveloping gaze.

"I will be your only hostage." The selfless attitude, the decisive mind, the kind heart. She was the portrait of a true leader. Relena Peacecraft Darlian had shown these qualities over and over again in her young life.

But never moreso than now. For never more was so very much on the line. These people, this country, this world was counting on her to have courage.

And Relena was not going to let a single one of them down.

Not now. Not ever. For as long as I live and breathe.

Which, right at this moment, didn't look to be all that much longer, with that nuclear bomb ticking.

And that went for him too. The last terrorist, feeling backed into a hole, and with time running out.

So what better human shield to have than the peaceful Sanc princess herself if I want to live through this. Even that's still up in the air. So maybe I'll keep my options open...

8:09 PM C.E.T.

"Fine! Hand over that box!" The desperate terrorist grabs Relena who has just selflessly offered herself in place of the sixty plus innocent souls in the hostage group.

He grabs her harshly by her wrists. Lady Anne makes a move towards him, but he sees her reflecting in his glasses in the corner of his eye, and thrusts a rather ungentlemanly fist out, connecting with her noble nose and sending her entire body flailing down to the floor. Mariemaia rushes to Lady's side.

The man then, rather than have even peaceful citizens roused at the treatment of their beloved hostess rise against him, takes Relena's arm and drags her bodily out of the drawing room. He slams the door shut, locking it behind them once again.

Moving in towards the group, Epyon de Telos man halts in front of Trowa, who already had the briefcase satchel open and was about to disarm it.

The man sticks his machine gun to Relena's head.

"Drop it." He says, just in time to halt Trowa's swift fingers, with the gun threat pressed to Relena's skull.

Her shocked, fear-stricken eyes connect with Trowa's and they become calm, focusing on his. He senses from her such inner strength, such total conviction, such absolute self-sacrifice...

And this woman, like so many others of her delicate and beautiful sex, could not be allowed to perish. The noble heart that beat so sanely within this thought lifeless and lost boy, would not let such a terrible thing happen.

He couldn't think what he would do if his Cathrine was in this situation. And he considered Heero Yuy enough of a friend to make sure not to do anything to endanger the woman he loved either.

The black briefcase drops to the floor.

"Kick it over to me."

Trowa pushes the device towards him with a foot and it clatters across the marble tiles.

"Good. Now free my men." He digs the gun even deeper into Relena's cranium and she closes her eyes, feeling so very weak and helpless, and such a hindrance to these boys who were THAT close to solving this whole terrible situation.

Oh, Heero...I wish you were here to help me through this...

Who says that wishes never come true?

A dark shadow falls over the hall. The sound of whirring motors fill the castle. A bright, flashing light penetrates through the heavily curtained windows, enveloping the entire room with a blinding pulsating beam as an all-too-familiar figures is silhouetted on the Sanc Kingdom's once again unpeaceful shores.

And another's voice that its princess' ruler only ever heard haunting inside her dreams...

"ATTENTION: EPYON DE TELOS. DISARM NOW, OR I'LL KILL YOU."

Heero Yuy's emotionless, monotone voice was not normally emotion evoking to others either. But any mere mortal faced down by the huge piece of mechanical marvel and its deadly, aimed straight at them, beam cannon, didn't need a scary provoking voice to enforce their fears.

A Gundam meant only one thing to its enemies--death. And every villain in this room knew that as their grim reaper seemed to peer into every window right at them, through their black sunglasses right into their blackened souls.

"Wa-wait! We have a nuclear weapon! You'll be killed, too!!!" One of the de Telos group who had been kicked off the staircase cries out, jumping to his feet. His pale blonde hair was not half as pale as his overconfident face becomes when Heero states his next line.

"So what would that matter to me. That's my girl. Life's not worth living anymore if she's gone. I might as well be dead, too." Deafening silence was his reply. The words were said so harshly, so deadpan serious and with a frightening straight face that the remaining members of the terrorist group look from the terrifying face of the Gundam to that of the pure princess.

Then the Epyon de Telos shrink back in total fear. Things were not supposed to happen this way. They were supposed to escape from this. They were promised they'd become symbols and heroes to the public masses of the righteous. They were freeing all from this corrupted world of total pacifism and tranquillity.

They were supposed to be the future heroes, not the past martyrs. And this crazy nutcase of a Gundam pilot gone wacko seemed genuine. All the way to claiming the beautiful Sanc Princess as his own.

Life not worth living anymore?!

"This guy's for real!!" Yet another of his teammate's was not willing to gamble his own precious tail. Their own nuclear bomb's five minute countdown, which was only seconds from commencing, was on prefixed automatic timer to allow them all to escape to their own fortified nuclear bomb shelter, below ground.

And now with this madman pilot on the loose, they'd just better get to that shelter--or else be caught in the nuclear bath and fall out only intended for the rest of the unpure, unchosen masses of Sanc first, then the remainder of a world that had shunned them.

Shunned them, their advanced weaponry and their imprisoned comrades in arms, all in the name of foolish peace.

The funny thing about most ferverous, rabid at the mouth terrorists who swear allegiance to support anything and their all important cause--they usually weren't willing to die for it.

The nine terrorists, though injured and bloodied, littered on the stairs were obviously not either. They were barely able to get up and trip over their own feet, let alone help or aid their wounded brothers. They each crash into one another as they all scurry to a secret elevator entrance that they had personally kept fully functional and ready to go in the past 24 hours, for a moment not quite envisioned as this.

But heck, they had their own necks to watch out for, right?

"RUN YOU WEAKLINGS!!!!! Wufei can't help but throw in a screech and a growl after them. Once the elevator doors shut behind the lot of cowards, they seal themselves off for a "nuclear winter" in the safety of their basement shelter.

LOCK ON.

Wufei breaks the plastic cover and pops the red emergency safety button of the now totally sealed off elevator with a smirky vengeance. He himself was awaiting, with anxiety, the time when he could go down and pick off those worthless weaklings one by one, just for the fun of it. This group was not coming back up in the same shape they went down in, that was for sure.