Relena scratched at the itch on the small of her back. Relena scratched at the itch under her arms. Relena scratched at the itch around her neck, and on her thighs, her elbows, all over. Bright red blotches had appeared under her dress on her skin like reporters after a celebrity break-up as well as those weird knobbly kinds of things that you get as well. She longed to free herself from her dress but there were enough bows and knots in its construction that it could have provided a community of octopuses with more shoe laces than they would ever need. It was all that she could do to stop herself from scratching herself with the convenient rake which was leaning against the wall by the door. Heero came in the door just as she was itching the small of her back with extreme difficulty, face flushed from the exertion.

'Uhh…Relena?'

'What?' she snapped, wishing that her left arm could stretch five centimetres further.

'Could we talk?'

'Talk?' She whirled around in a flurry of lace to face him, 'Yeah we could talk. All I've ever wanted to do was talk. All through the war, I just wanted to talk. But would anyone listen to anything I had to say? Did you? Huh? Huh? You had to be one of the worst, always going off in that stupid angel rubbish can; thinking with you're damned testosterone pumps!'

She took a deep breath, gearing up to let out all the heat that had built up during her itching. Heero wished that he had never come in. She let go. Cracks appeared in the paint on the roof as Heero was pushed backwards from the wind and sound pumping from Relena's powerful pipes.

'How can you just barge in here, on my wedding day, and ask whether I could talk to you? The moment I get used to the idea of a mute, psycho husband and you float in acting like a fruit cake! Before you just used that phallic symbol to get away from me, then you decide to get in touch with your feelings at the last minute! Do you not want to get married? Don't you respect me? I knew it! You never have! None of my work has ever impressed you! I'm the Queen of the world for God's sake! Does that mean nothing to you? Don't stare at me as though I'm a lesser being! That's it! You're cheating on me aren't you? So who is it, you lying pig? Noin? Sally Poe? Hilde? Lady Une?'

She gasped. Heero mentally ducked for cover.

'DOROTHY! I knew it! You can't keep you're hands off that tart can you? Don't look so surprised! I knew it! Dorothy is OFF the guest list, you hear me? You're not getting out of this! Relena Peacecraft will not be strung along! So what do you have to say to defend yourself? Huh? Huh? You wanted to have a talk? So TALK! What's wrong? Cat got you're tongue? Open up you yellow bellied liar!

If Heero had ever felt fear, it was now. He had been put up against a creature that was immune to his bank of threatening and killing prowess. So he did the one thing he could think of doing. Diving for the door.

'OH NO! DON'T THING THAT YOU'RE GETTING AWAY THAT EASILY!'

Heero ducked at the last minute before a porcelain vase was added to his facial features. He swung the door open and leapt out. Once beyond the threshold of the door, he turned back to her and called in a frightened voice 'I'll see you at the ceremony then.'

His eyes widened as they saw the rake hurtling towards him. He slammed the door shut just in time. Once the rake had clattered to the floor on the other side, he quickly stuck his head back in to tell her that Pagan had been admitted at the nearby hospital with large round footprints on his back. He slid down the dark wood of the door after retracting his vulnerable noggin from the range of Relena's throws, sighing. His nervousness had been somewhat magnified in learning that his fiancée was a woman who used every one of her 15000 daily word quota.

Quatre found that he was strangely remorseless as he watched two burly security guards pursue Dorothy Catalonia up and down the yard, shoving guests out of the way in an attempt to get to her. He might have been a bit more compassionate and more willing to help her if the second guard hadn't been carrying an axe of such devilish proportions.

The blond pilot had been standing around by himself for some time now. Trowa had disappeared and was probably unconscious on the ground somewhere, regenerating blood, looking like a vampire victim. Duo had last been seen following Catherine around and Quatre had wisely decided that he didn't even want to know what he was planning. Wufei had simply disappeared as he usually did, with no real purpose in mind.

Twenty minutes after Dorothy had been 'ushered' out of the party, kicking and screaming. Relena flung open the doors of the stately house in the middle of the grounds and flew down the stairs, yelling into a walkie talkie that she would be out there (Quatre assumed that she meant the gate) to deal with Dorothy herself once she had picked up a rifle from the caretaker's shed.

As Quatre watched Relena speeding out of sight, he heard behind him.

'Strength must run in the family'

He looked over his shoulder to see Lucretia Noin and Zechs Marquis/Millardo Peacecraft standing side-by-side. They both looked tired. Zechs was to give Relena away and he had gotten off the express shuttle from Mars only the day before. Noin looked at Quatre and smiled slightly. She ostentatiously flicked back her fringe with her left hand, the light catching on something and almost blinding the young pilot.

After rubbing his eyes, tears streaming down his face, he glanced cautiously at her ring finger to see a diamond sitting on a golden ring like an extra fluffy loaf of bread on the thorax of a prematurely born ant. The rock was refracting the light in such a way that rainbows burst forth from six different places. Noin looked very pleased with herself. Zechs looked disgruntled.

After a year on Mars together, Noin and Zechs had decided to view themselves as man and wife; wed by the Planet of the God of War, witnessed by stars and the entire cosmos and consummated in the shuttle cockpit. He had been brought back down to Earth and its pricey reality with a hipbone shattering bump after being told by a fellow commander to 'pull himself together and get the poor girl a rock.'

And thus, they were to be married during the next month. Any hostilities or rivalries between Heero and Zechs had been done away with once they discovered that they were going through the same circle of Hell.

Noin was fishing an extravagant floral themed invitation to her wedding from her handbag for Quatre and his sisters, she had decided not to name them all as most of the card was already taken up by rose coloured rose designs, when an ear splitting shriek rang through the air and split a number of the wine glasses that the guests were holding, turning a number of coats and dresses a wet shade of magenta.

Before the reverberations of the scream had faded, the remaining unbroken wine glasses were knocked to the ground in shards as the black shape of Heero flashed between and through the guests with the speed and the destructive capacity of black lightning bolt in a tuxedo.

As he whirled pass Quatre, Noin and Zechs, Noin's dress billowing up in a typical Marilyn Monroe fashion, Quatre heard a panicked hiss in his ear.

'Relena'

Quatre paled. He turned about and followed Heero out of the grounds. At the side of the road a small group were huddled. Quatre sped over and hopped on one leg, trying to see over the skyscraper shoulders of two security guards. Wufei, Duo and Trowa swaggered, ran and tumbled respectively through the clearing to the road. Trowa who was slightly taller than the others was able to peer over the puffy shoulder pads of 'Carl' and 'Todd'. The marginally taller pilot's eyes widened and the traces of regained blood that had chugged cautiously through his cheeks were suddenly drained.

'What is it?' Duo asked. He had been worried that it might have been Quatre who had screamed. The voice had been of indiscriminate gender and Quatre's screams of terror could pass for either a man or a woman.

Trowa swallowed.

'It was a car.'

'But who is it?' Duo pressed him desperately.

Trowa swallowed a second time, looking woozy.

'Dorothy'

They all sighed in relief.

Mischief mage: If you are a fan of Dorothy...PLEASE DON'T HURT ME! Yes it was a short chapter. It just seemed like the right place to end it.