Another day dawns, which means I add another chapter (2nd last one I think depends on how I go). I do have my plans for the sequel, but I will be willing to accept any ideas that anyone has, just email me (My e-mail is in my profile) feel free, all ideas will be considered, but I cannot guarantee placement.

Reviewers:

70 David- Sorry but that will be covered in the sequel, I don't want to rush into that just yet, as far as this story is concerned Wilhelm is just a militia that has cracked and gone insane.

AmDragon- Good to hear, Oh and welcome to the proboards ADJL forum, I got the username brucecampbellrules there so look out for me.

YFWE- Sorry about your recent losses on the ADJL forum, I know you were good friends with a few of the guys that left and I hope you and Raffi manage to settle things in the meantime. Its OK if you don't feel like reviewing, Ill understand.

Rewards: I can't be bothered to think of any, I will jip you of these until sometime in the sequel.

Chapter 18- The fateful choice

(It has come to my attention that I forgot to mention that Pitt lost his grip on Kevin the American Businessman and took the trip to the ground, the short way, Kevin the American businessman was perfectly fine)

There was a lot of smoke in the fire stairs by now and parts had collapsed and other parts seemed unstable. Lao Shi felt that he needed to accompany the magical creatures even though he really wanted to help Jake, but he knew it was his responsibility to ensure the magical creatures exited the building alive. After they had slowly but successfully gone down 7 flights of steps one of the terrorists had a change of heart. Dave didn't expect much resistance from the terrorists, but he did not have enough handcuffs to bind all the terrorists. One of the unbound guys grabbed Dave's gun. He then took a businessman hostage and said "Im going up, no one try to stop me"

"That's crazy man, you will never make it." Replied Dave

"Shut up" He began to climb the stairs with the hostage.

Dave started to follow the terrorist up, but the Texan stopped him. "I got blood to avenge, You get the rest of the hostages to safety"

Dave stood there and looked at him for a minute then replied "Ok". He then gathered the rest of the hostages and continued walking down the fiery smoke filled stairs.

Wilhelm had jumped down into a fiery smoke filled room. He was well armed but the Dragon was nowhere in sight. "Blast it" he exclaimed "I will have that dragon's hide for this."

He walked carefully through the room. The smoke was very bad. It hurt his eyes. He coughed. He pulled out a handkerchief and covered his mouth and nose. "I will get you yet, damn interfering dragon."

Jake could see that Wilhelm had followed him down. His eyes could see better then human eyes. He decided to sneak up and do a flying kick at Wilhelm and hopefully knock him out. He snuck up perfectly behind Wilhelm, and jumped in the kicking stance.

Something then happened. Wilhelm realised he was hearing something. It was the dragon. He felt that he needed to duck, So he did. Jake missed. This caught Jake off guard. Immediately Wilhelm sprung into action. He grabbed Jakes hands and bound them using the sphinxes hair rope. He then tied them to an iron bar Used to help stabilise the building. It could not be broken. He had Jake tied and tethered.

"Yo let me outta here" cried Jake. He then breathed fire, but missed. I will be taking my detonators now and you will die in this building. He made a grab for the detonators, when suddenly he was shot from behind. It hit his shoulder and he fell forward.

"Damn, I was aiming for the monster" said a voice. It was the chief of police.

"He then realised that he hit Wilhelm. "I saw what you did to my SWAT, no one gets away with that."

The Texan continued up the steps silently so as to not alert the terrorist. He held a berretta pistol in his hand. He heard shots from above him. The hostage soon came running down. It was clear that the hostage had escaped. "Go down, the rest of them are still moving" The Texan told the hostage. But he didn't follow him. He wanted blood. Suddenly he was shot at. From in front of him none of the bullets hit. He fired back, once, silence. He continued up the steps. He thought he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He fired again. Still nothing. He continued up the steps. The terrorist would soon run out of places to go. There was more gunfire from up ahead, it was still a miss. The Texan fired again in the general direction. He figured that he missed. He continued up the steps but he had to be near the top now. He fired once again there was still silence, but the lack of a body had convinced him that he missed. More panic fire came from the terrorist. The Texan shot again. Once again, he missed. He was now near the top. He looked hard into the darkness. The terrorist it seemed had nowhere to go. He filled the staircase with panic fire, hoping to hit the Texan that was following him. He shot one more time. The terrorists firing stopped. He mounted the rest of the steps with the pistol aimed at the terrorist who was slumped against a wall and looked like he was reaching for his gun. A smile crossed the Texans face.

"I know what your thinking, Your thinking Did he fire six shots or only five? Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I can't quite remember myself, considering this is a berretta 990 which is powerful enogh to blow half your head off, you should ask yourself one question. Do I fell lucky? Well do you, Do you feel lucky Punk?" (Can anyone guess the movie?)

The terrorist looked at him for a second. He seemed to be making a decision, trying to think in his head how many shots were fired. He pulled back for a second, then suddenly went for the gun.

BANG

The Texan fired. He couldn't contain himself, he started laughing. 'You idiot' he thought. 'Its not even a six shooter, it's a ammo clip gun, 12 bullets'

He began to go back down the stairs when suddenly the roof collapsed onto the fie stairs, blocking the exit route.

"Damn" Yelled the Texan. He tried for a minute to find a way out. Then he gave up. "At least I got blood for both of us" he said to himself. He then sat sown against the wall, next to the dead Terrorist and pulled out a hidden canteen full of whiskey and began drinking it. (This is a lot more morbid then I planned it to be, I like it that way though)

"Time is up for you, Wilhelm Roentgen" sneered the chief of police. "I win"

The chief of police got ready to pull the trigger when suddenly the roof began cracking. A large beam fell from the roof and right onto his head. He was knocked out by this.

"What a great stroke of luck" Commented Wilhelm. "God must like me."

Wilhelm turned back to Jake. "Id love to stay and chat, but I've got business to attend to, so if you would excuse me, I will take my detonators, my orb and I will be off. He took the detonators off Jake.

"Yo won't get away with this" Jake yelled.

"Just watch me" Wilhelm started coughing and he began making his way to the edge of the room. He then disappeared in the darkness.

'Hell never get out of here,' Jake thought , 'I never will either.'

The group going down the fire stairs had their own problems. A large section had collapsed. They needed to somehow get to the other side. Else it was a two story drop to the stairs below them and they couldn't be sure how stable those stairs were. Officer Campbell volunteered to see if the jump could be made. He took a careful run up got to the edge and jumped. He made it but a bit broke off when he landed. He was still on the stable part though. Kevin the American businessman tried next. He made it but a little more broke off. If they could somehow undo the sphinx hair ropes around the two trolls, they could carry people across and save more time but that seemed out of the question. They had to resort on people jumping across, but every time someone did this, a little more would crumble off, and the gap would get a little wider. There got to a point where Dave, the trolls the centaur and six other people were on the upper side. The gap was too wide for a human to jump it.

"How good are you at carrying people?" Dave asked the centaur. I could probably make that gap with one person on my back" the centaur replied.

"Excellent, the last businessman will take that trip"

The businessman got onto the back of the centaur and they jumped over the gap. There was now only Dave, five terrorists and the two tethered trolls.

"I could try carrying people in my dragon form, but I don't know if I have enough energy to transform." Lao Shi commented from the other side.

"Don't worry Well figure out a way"

"I heard somewhere that sphinx's hair weakens under high temperatures." Everyone turned and looked at Mike Hunt

"How could you have heard of that?" several people asked him

"He's right though" added Lao Shi (BTW Jake doesn't know this)

"Well I was high and I thought I was hallucinating when I saw 2 pixies discussing magical stuff. Looks like my sight was perfectly fine"

"We have to get the fire to burn the ropes" Dave said.

Dave ran up to the floor and looked around. He grabbed some wood that was on fire then ran back down to the trolls.

"Hold still, this will hurt a bit." He started to burn away the ropes and in a short period of time they were free. The trolls jumped across. Because of their size, they were able to reach over and pick up the terrorists.

There was one terrorist and Dave left to cross over when a lot more of the staircase gave in. Dave was able to jump back in time, but the terrorist fell down into the dark fiery depths.

The trolls could no longer reach Dave. There was a large rumbling, and a lot of debris began falling, it seemed like the building would collapse, but as quickly as it started, it stopped.

"Take them down," Dave ordered officer Campbell

Officer Campbell was not one for emotional farewells. While many of the people gasped at this Officer Campbell immediately ordered them to continue down the stairs. Dave just sat on the stairs, not knowing what to do. He began choking on the smoke. He lay back against the stairs and whispered a prayer.

The fire was hot and Jake couldn't take much more of this waiting in the heat. He had just run out of hope and leaned forward, when suddenly SNAP, the rope broke. Jake was amazed by this. He had never seen sphinx hair break like that before. Now that he was untethered, he could transform Human (at great pain) and the ropes would slip off. He flew to the other side of the room. Wilhelm was nowhere in sight. 'Where could he have gone to?' Wondered Jake. Then Jake saw it. An open air conditioning vent. He would have to transform human again to crawl through it, but he was sure that's where Wilhelm had gone.

Jake went human. Some of the pain became almost unbearable. The metal sides were also boiling hot, but he had to go through, to escape.

The rest of the captives reached the bottom floor with few other hassles. They were all injured, suffering from smoke inhalation and tired.

Officer Campbell exited first. On this sight the crowd cheered. Then the hostages came out one by one. The crowd cheered. The terrorists were next, they came out with their hands above their heads. The crowd booed. Police officers rushed forward to cuff them all, including Mike.

Next exited the magical creatures. The crowd were all silent at this. Lao Shi followed them. Waiting for Lao Shi just outside were the dragon council.

"They know" Said councillor Andam. "Our secret is out. Where is the orb?"

"Jake has gone to retrieve it" replied Lao Shi, he then explained the situation.

"Ok I will go up onto the roof and see if I can lend assistance" He replied before turning dragon and flying up. By now the crowd of spectators did not care about another dragon. They came to realise that this was good. Councillor Andam landed on the roof, but couldn't see anyone.

Jake finally made it to the observation deck. Just in time as well, for he looked around to see that Wilhelm had just made his way through the collapsing room, to the stairs up to the roof. Wilhelm looked behind him, to see the dragon. He yelped then ran up the stairs. "Dragon Up" Jake yelled and flew to the other side.

When Wilhelm got to the roof, he looked at the chopper. 'I did a course back before Nam, I should be able to handle it, he thought to himself. At closer inspection, he saw the pilot was in the cockpit, possibly waiting for him with the engine running. Wilhelm opened the side door. There was still an array of weapons in the chopper. He got in and the chopper started to take off.

Jake got up in time to see the chopper lift off. Councillor Andam was distracted by the chopper, but then saw Jake.

"Do you have the orb?" he asked

"No man, the damn terrorist still got it"

"Your single duty now, above everything else is to recover that orb, no matter what's at stake" ordered councillor Andam

"Ya I got ya"

Wilhelm pressed the main detonator on the building.

"Ha you guys have a 60 second delay before the building blows", he shouted, then laughed.

"Now, we must follow him"

"Ok" Jake got ready to go. Suddenly his dragon ears twitched, he heard something from inside the burning building. He stopped for a second to listen.

"What are we waiting for?"

"Shh" said Jake as he strained to listen

He heard the voice again, it sounded like 'Hello, where am I, master?'

Jake gasped. He knew the voice, it was Rose, she was still inside the building.

"We have to follow the chopper now!" Yelled Andam

End Chapter

Can Rose risk losing the orb to save the enemy in front of councillor Andam? Defy a direct order for love? With only about 50 seconds until the building collapses?

I hope I got you hanging here, tune in tomorrow for the last chapter of the first story.