Chapter Twenty

A bullet passed through his body, blood spilling out of his fresh wound like water.

And Relena screamed.

Her scream snapped Kitsune from the self destruction device, both her and Andy's eyes turning back to normal. "Hee-chan!"

Reinhardt was prepared to take another shot, but Andy sped through the crowd of dazed AES soldiers to knock out the gun in his hands. Kaitou took this opportunity to break free of the handcuffs and knocked the wind out of one AES soldier before he had even realized it. Kitsune ran at the AES soldiers in a rage, knocking down five of the soldiers before reaching Relena, Zechs, and Noin. She quickly broke their handcuffs with her bare hands.

"Daijoubu?" she asked them.

"We're fine," Noin replied.

"Heero...what about Heero?" Relena asked, shaken.

After dodging what would have been a knockout punch from Andy, Reinhardt turned towards his shoulders, shouting, "What are you doing just standing there?!? Get them!"

Roy growled in anger from his position, taking out a smoke bomb. I've got to help them. He threw the bomb into the hallway, letting the smoke fill the area as he made his entrance.

"We've got to get out of here," he could hear Kaitou say who was lifting Heero's limp body over his shoulder and putting pressure on the wound to keep the blood from pouring out.

"But how are we going to get out?" he could hear Noin ask, supporting a shaken Relena.

"You can follow me," Roy finally spoke. He could hear two guns being pointed in his direction.

"Who's there?" Kaitou and Zechs demanded.

Roy stepped into their vision. Andy's eyes widened in surprise. "Roy?"

"Come on, we've got to move," Roy said, allowing no other interruption. "This smoke isn't going to last long."

He led them away from Reinhardt and the others, running just fast enough form them to follow. When the smoke had cleared and Reinhardt's vision returned, they were gone.

<Preventer air duct system...yes you have read this right>

The air ducts, she concluded, were a form of torture. Kisaragi Yukki was a woman to be considered lucky to survive the explosion at the hospital. She was completely healed within a day and a half, but it didn't mean that her mental scars were healed. She paused and flinched again as a nearby explosion rattled the safety of the airduct. Murmuring some soothing words to herself, she gathered the courage to continue on her journey in the dark tunnel.

"Man, I hate being the smallest," she muttered to herself, pulling her weight forward to the next vent. "I always get stuck with the nitty-gritty stuff."

She ceased talking as her heightened vision and hearing caught movement and speech below her. Finally! someone alive for once. She peered through the vent and saw three figures in the room. Two were socializing with each other while the third sat silently in the corner, watching the surveillance screens.

"Wufei, you know this place better than I do," a familiar voice said. Yukki quickly recognized it to be Kaede Yuy. "Is there a hidden exit that you know of?"

"You intending to leave the others here?" Wufei asked nonchalantly. Yukki didn't know who he was, but she guessed that he was a Preventer by the look of his clothing.

"Ie, of course not," Kaede replied. "If I can just get some communication through Heero, I can tell him to meet us there."

"What makes you think that Heero-san isn't dead yet?" the third figure finally spoke out, tearing her eyes away from the screens. "We just saw him get shot."

"Gally, you don't know who---" Wufei was about to say, but Kaede waved her hand for silence.

"Ssh, ssh, I think someone's here," Kaede explained. "Let me listen for a sec."

Yukki's eyes widened in surprise. How could she hear me? I'm not making any noise.

"I don't hear anything," Gally said after a few minutes.

However, Kaede had turned to the direction of the vent above them, her eyes staring right into Yukki's. "I know you're up there, just get out before you get hurt."

Slowly, Yukki punched open the vent and let herself down. She brushed away a few bits of dust here and there before straightening herself to let the others see her face. Kaede gasped.

"Oi, you're the---"

"The soldier who tried to poison your cousin?" Yukki finished, brushing back a strand lock of hair. "Hai."

"You're an AES soldier?" Gally murmured in curiosity.

Noticing the look of suspicion in both Kaede and Wufei's eyes, Yukki began to explain herself, "It's not what you think. My friends and I came here on our own accord to find Andrew Lowe. See?" She waved her arms in a sign of surrender. "I'm unarmed. The only electronic device I have on me is my communicator."

"Sou ka," Kaede said, still a bit wary. "But why do you want to talk to Andy for?"

Yukki hesitated for a moment before softly replying, "I know him....somehow. Not just by name, either."

Wufei arched a curious eyebrow, not understanding. However, Kaede seemed to know what the younger woman was talking about as her eyes softened with sympathy.

"You're one of the originals, aren't you?" she asked.

Yukki nodded. "From what I was told."

A sudden static noise came into the room, startling everyone inside except for Yukki who quickly stopped the noise from her earring.

"Yukki here, what is it?" she asked.

"Yukki, where are you?" came Roy's voice. "We need to find a way out of here. I found them, but one's injured and injured badly. Vicks and Marlena aren't responding; I think they're already gone."

Yukki's eye flinched slightly at the news, but she didn't let anyone see. If two of her "friends" were killed by their own kind for betrayal, she knew that they probably died fighting them.

"I'm in the surveillance room," she replied without emotion. She looked at Kaede and added, "I've also found some survivors."

If Roy was surprised or not, he didn't let it show in his voice.

"Okay, that's good. There should be a map in one of the drawers of the filing cabinet. Can you look to see if there is an area that isn't marked on the map?"

What kind of question is that? Yukki asked herself as she sifted through a filing cabinet nearby under the watchful yet curious eyes of the room's inhabitants. Eventually she took out a map and opened it.

"Anno...where are you?" she asked.

She heard gunshots and the murmurs of some people in the background before Roy replied, "Block D-7."

Her eyes quickly scanned the map before finding his location. She pointed at an area left empty and turned to Wufei. "You're a Preventer, right? Do you know of any exits or areas that were left unmarked from the map?"

Wufei stood next to her, eyeing the Preventer map carefully. Then he pointed to the same area she was pointing at. "There's a passageway that leads to the underground hangar. You can practically exit the base unnoticed since very few know of its whereabouts."

"Yosh, Roy, got to block E-3. There should be a hidden passage in one of the quads," Yukki said to her communicator.

"Okay, we'll meet you there."

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Ah, yeah, blase chapter, I know. I couldn't think of anything else to write ^^. Anyhoo, ending coming soon, just hope you don't kill me for it ^^;;;;; R&R!