Relena looked up with defiance at the red-eyed man robed heavily with layers upon layers of flowing cloth that billowed in his fury. Her eyes held passion and determination.
"You are a fool."
"I think it would be the other way around." An eyebrow was raised to her statement. "No one, not even OZ has lived after capturing a Gundam pilot."
"I have no idea what you are talking about, but…" He smirked mirthlessly, sweeping his hand to show her the now open door behind her, "I think I have the advantage."
She glared darkly, mimicking Heero's death glare.
He chuckled coldly at her attempt to frighten him. "You have gut's for coming to my domain, to try and rescue your friend who now belongs to me."
"And you," she snapped back, "Don't have any for kidnaping a person stronger than you when in a semi-coma!" That comment earned her a harsh slap on the cheek.
"I would watch what you say, girl." He hissed out, eyes full of cold malice and hate.
"And you, yours." She ground out as she tried to get feeling back in her bruising cheek. "Heero won't even blink when he kills you for what you've done."
His hand reached up, grabbing her chin roughly, "I believe that you are like that braided boy." He grinned coldly at her with a scheme already plotting in his twisted mind. "I believe that you and he are the ones that will break this high spirited one of mine."
"Heero is not yours and he never will be." She spat in his face angrily. He slapped her again, this time the other cheek. Tears lined her eyes but she refused to let them fall.
"I have a feeling that you and I will get to know each other very well over your stay here." He looked at her captors and nodded swiftly at them.
Her eyes turned cold and fear was hidden in them when the lackeys of Lord Voldemort pulled her towards the door. The grip around each of her arms tightened and she winced, getting a laugh from Lord Voldemort with this. The first thing that she realized was that the air was stale, not holding a normal "taste" one might say. She coughed and gagged reflexively when the next scent hit her. Blood. And lots of it.
When she opened her eyes, she was at the threshold of the cell, wondering what they were going to do to her and if her plan would work.
A shadow, hung suspended by chains was in the room, still and chest barely moving. She gasped, eyes widening. "Heero!" Then she was shoved ruthlessly into the dark room and the door slammed shut behind her before she could even bat an eyelash.
Heero didn't respond, he didn't even look up when she said his name or when the door slammed shut.
"Heero…" Tears blurred her vision but she walked with determined steps over to him.
Now wasn't the time to get cold feet.
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Blaue Augen
By: Lost-Remembrance (Red Tail)
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Chapter Nine:
"Hey!" Hermione smiled as she caught up with the rather pretty teenager, who turned upon hearing her name and slowed her pace to almost a stop. A smile crossed the new student's face and she nodded in return to the greeting.
"What's up?" The question was simple, but could mean almost anything. It could mean what's up with you, what's going on, and so many others, including the most infamous answer Duo loved to say involving the sky.
She shrugged, a smile on her face, "Not much." She shifted the book in her arms and the book bag strap on her shoulder that was digging into her flesh. In truth, she was lying. She knew, deep down in her gut that something was going on around here and Heero had something to do with it. Luckily, she was able to hide any signs of worry with her politician mask, thanking god that she knew how to cover her emotions easily.
"Did you make any new friends?" Hermoine was rather glad that she had made a new friend, someone that she could hold a conversation with that was almost like her, minus following all the rules at times since she hung out with those other new student. Wasn't she the one that hung around with that Japanese-looking boy with blue eyes that had been put in the Infirmary?
The bushy-haired girl was pulled out of her thoughts by Relena's response of, "Yes."
"Really?" It didn't surprise her that the blonde had made new friends already. Most of the new students were rather outgoing, particularly Quatre, Duo, and Relena herself but those other three boys, Trowa and Heero were rather silent while Wufei…well, she didn't want to remember the incident in Herbology where he started on a rant about weak women and injustice.
She sighed in remembrance to the event. Not all the girls in the classroom had taken in lightly, especially those tough girls in Slytherin.
"Something wrong?" Relena quirked an eyebrow in question, wondering what had her friend, her first just-about-as-normal-as-you-can-get friend, so exhausted over.
"Oh," she managed a small and tired smile at Relena. "Nothing…" and upon seeing the look Relena gave her, she sighed once more. "Just that Wufei ranted on about weak women and injustice or something that made all the girl's mad."
Relena laughed and Hermione looked shocked.
"What?" She fumbled, almost tripping on a stone by her feet as she continued to keep pace with the giggling girl. "What's so funny!" She held a pouted look on her face, waiting for Relena to go in depth on her reason for laughing at the hot-tempered Chinese teen.
"Oh," Relena giggled behind her hand as her eyes twinkled with mirth, "Nothing."
Hermione frowned, crossing her arms with an angry look on her face as best as she could without dropping any of her scrolls and texts.
"Fine, fine!" Hermione looked over at Relena, "It's just that Wufei never changes. He's been like that since…" she frowned, "Well since I first met him. Probably even longer."
"Oh." She held a thoughtful and calculating look in her eyes until she perked up once again, "Well, you should have seen those "weak women" beat him up!" Relena laughed once more. She had missed talking like a student, going back to school to meet people and not worrying about the world's safety.
A sharp pain in her gut came with that thought about the world, and colonies, safety without her there, making her push that thought away. It wasn't like they could go home if they wanted to or not. She just hoped that another war wouldn't break out with her absence.
"So who was that new friend that you made?"
"Oh," Relena brushed some locks of her hair back behind her shoulder while some smaller strands tucked behind her ear instead. "Someone in Hufflepuff named Fiona, a rather nice girl."
"Ah," Hermione nodded about the nice comment. There must have been a reason why the girl was in Hufflepuff, if not for her kindness. That's what Hufflepuff's, just like this Fiona person, were known for.
"So…" Relena looked up at the sky and sighed, wishing that she could see the familiar barely visible dots in the sky that represented the colonies. She was sure that the Gundam pilots were having a harder time than her—former soldiers stuck on the place where they had battled for peace in their homeland which no longer existed in this world.
"Heero…" She whispered, the wind blowing lightly against her and making her hair tickle her with feathery kisses. She wiggled her nose in response and brushed the annoying strands out of the way.
'You're still the Prince of the Stars, Heero…'
"Do you miss him?" She blinked out of her reverie, looking at Hermione and nodding.
"I remember the first time I met him, ever since then he's always protect me." She smiled at the thoughts, leaving out the part of him saying he was going to kill her. It wouldn't do any good for the students at this wizarding school to know that there were terrorists living in dorms and taking classes with them right under their noses.
"That's so sweet." She blushed, wishing that she could say the same thing about her love life. Usually, it was just Harry in the end that ended up saving them. She sighed, when was Ron going to shut up and try to save her? Even if it was a spider?
She smiled when she remembered a spider had been in Ron's suitcase and he had screamed for help, not Hermione who ended up "saving" him from the "evil little bugger", as Ron had quaintly put it.
"Hermione?" Relena questioned, not looking down from the sky as their pace slowed to a sluggish, languid walk through the castle grounds.
"Hm?"
"Do you ever wonder what would happen if you just wake up one morning and then the person that you care about most is gone?" It was a stupid question, really that just brought up memories from the past. Heero running away from the hospital, Heero being attacked one night and he finding out last from Duo who had come to tell her.
Despite the braided pilot's obvious love for Heero, she couldn't hold any feelings of hate against him. Perhaps she was lucky, she had at least managed to hold him, even if he was unconscious. And she almost got a kiss when they were leaving the colony to be blown up during Sogran's would be revolt to bring about another war. Too bad an explosion sounded and rocked the colony, Duo running back and getting them out of there without further delay.
Duo had just smiled, never getting in her way and she his. Heero's heart wasn't something that could be won, and, especially during the times of peace, he was extremely fragile.
"I…I don't know, Lena." She smiled sadly, memories slowly fading back to where they had come from and she nodded, brushing some tears that almost fell down her rosy cheeks away.
Hermione remained silent when she saw this.
'I know that something is going on, and I swear Heero…no matter what, I'll try and be strong for you.' Strength was what she needed, and courage is what held her together when, Quatre this time, came to her with the news.
Heero was missing.
The window was open and the bed sheets were tossed around, showing signs of distress or of a struggle. Either way, Heero must have woken up and been lost in a memory of when he was captured by the Alliance and thus tried to escape. Obviously, either way he was missing. Relena knew that Heero wouldn't have jumped—she knew deep down that something had happened to him.
Now, the moon hung full in the sky, casting shadows across the slumbering people in the young girl's dorm. She crept to her feet, taking deep breaths as she pulled out some stuff under her pillow, slipping it all over her body in discrete places. She tied her hair in a braid, slipping some objects into the hair where it wouldn't be noticed, just like she had seen Duo do once.
She was ready.
Getting to her feet, she tied on her sneakers, throwing off her robes to reveal the clothing similar to what she would wear in her era, or something along the lines of that. Denim hiphuggers, ones that fit her almost tightly were almost like a second skin and Relena understood why Heero wore spandex (other than the fact that J made him). She guessed it was fore flexibility. She was surprised when she found out how easy it was for mobility. To top it off, she had on a item of semblance. Heero's loose forest green tank top that she had managed to grab from among the clutter in the hospital wing. Under that, she wore a spaghetti strap, knowing the loose shirt would allow people to see her…well, blushing she knew she'd slap anyone who even tried to look at her in that way.
'Ready?' Her mind questioned herself, grabbing the wand and looking at the spell's incantation written neatly on her hand.
"Ready." Then, she closed her eyes, whispering the words and disappeared.
She blinked, expecting to see the darkness of the world outside the castle, someone on the grounds…but found herself bathed in moon light.
"Right." She had forgotten that the moon had shown brightly tonight. Silently, she made her way off the school grounds and pictured a place she had seen in her dreams, a gut feeling telling her that Heero was there, and whispered the words once more.
Before anyone who might have seen the flaxen haired girl, looking like a goddess on a hill less than a mile from Hogwarts, bathed in moon light, didn't have time to blink before the image was gone, just a shadow of a memory.
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And that was how she found herself in the current situation. She somehow wondered if OZ was as easy to "infiltrate" as she had done here, getting herself captured on purpose was a wonderful idea.
Reaching into her hair, she pulled out a slim object, thinking that the evil wizard people dressed in black were stupid to think that a woman was weak and not check her over for weapons because of this thought. Stupid idiots were the lot of them.
Tch. She silently worked on getting the slim piece of metal into the small keyhole, knowing it would be easier to break than the binding devices in her era and time. A click was what rewarded her and she smiled in relief.
On arm down.
It fell limply and Relena had to support Heero so that the arm still being tied up wouldn't dislocate itself. She didn't want to cause him anymore pain, that much was for sure. She ignored the blood staining her clothes and his bare chest and the other wounds marring his body. She blinked back tears, biting her lip to keep from sobbing as she tried working the keyhole again and again.
"Please!" She sobbed in a whisper, never giving up as she tried again and again to open the lock that seemed to mock her. She lowered her head, closing her eyes to pray. A click reached her ears and she blinked, jerking her head up just in time to have Heero fall on her, making her fall to the ground with him on top of her. She blushed furiously.
'Now what?'
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She had tied the shreds of spare clothing she had over some of the more suspicious looking injuries, hoping it would help to stop the bleeding, which thank fully slowed down after she had cleaned him up a bit. Bruises and some gashes lined his wrists, showing he had put up a good fight and struggled to break free of his bonds. Unlucky for her, however, that she could tell by the swelling and spidery thin wisps of red marks trailing from the wound towards his heart that he had an infection. Judging by the symptoms he was showing, it wasn't a very good one either.
"I'll get you out of here." She gently wiped a bit of his shirt over his forehead, cleaning off the beading sweat that was beginning to form. She sighed, knowing it was not good news that he was getting a fever over the passing minutes.
He wouldn't wake up…she had tried over and over again, thinking of everything thing to try and do but none worked. She had cried for a little bit, less than a minute before she remembered that he was counting on her, not her weakness, but on her strength to get both of them out of here as safely as she could muster.
And that lead her to the decision of her method of escape, the surest way possible.
She had managed to sneak into Duo's room, asking Quatre if she could grab something from Heero's luggage and give her a moment of "alone time" and in her state, he couldn't deny her anything.
That was when she took the explosives. Enough to blow down a door, and more. In fact, it was enough to blow the entire wall off of the room they were being held captive in.
Using the silly putty, she stuck it to the wall, careful to make sure she knew how much she was setting to go off. She couldn't have them tucked away, buried alive under the ceiling now could she?
Now it was her turn to play the terrorist.
Lifting the detonation switch out in front of her, she looked at the explosives on the door and then at Heero who was being supported up by her.
"Ready?" She asked him with a small smile. No reaction. She fought back the fears of what limit his injuries were that caused him to not even regain consciousness when she had tried to dress some of his wounds. She knew that they had to be painful when she wrapped her torn ribbon around them, covering as most as she could. Heero would be mad at her if she ripped his tank top after all.
The door opened and Relena glared at the enemy. She really hated killing—and violence, but she had to get Heero out of there. If she didn't, perhaps more violence would occur if she didn't even.
A person walked into the room, eyes widening when they looked at the detonation switch in her hand, held almost expertly.
Eyes widening, the cloaked person opened his mouth to let out a warning to the others in the area, but in a heart beat, Relena clicked the button. It was as if time had stopped, the world freezing for a moment.
Then, the moment was gone.
With a small 'pip', it was less than a second later that the room burst into flames by a series of explosions, the cell and hallway burst into flames as Relena was thrown backwards, her and Heero roughly hitting the wall.
She pictured the scowling image of that man's face, glaring at her for ruining his plan. She would have laughed if her body didn't hurt so much. She would have killed him if she had the chance, pacifist or not.
TBC
Author's note: Woot! I tried to make it as long as I could, and I told you Relena fan's that you'd like the chapter. Don't worry, Duo fan's, you'll have your chapter also!
Thank you everyone for the reviews! I can't believe that I almost have a hundred:keels over and dies from shock:
Thanks everyone for the great reviews, artgirl for betaing, and reviews are always welcomed and hugged!
Love, Red Tail