Garou + Part 22 (cont)
Escape

* * * * * *

Hilde dragged Relena to the campus's east entry, holding her by her hand, and the young lady had no other choice than to let the brunette manhandle her, a little embarrassed.

"Say…!"

"Yeah?"

"What are we going to do?" she asked. "If someone recognize us and stops us before we arrive to the car? They'll know I came to see Heero in the area and they'll continue to search there…"

The brunette stopped, squinting her eyelids, thinking as fast as she could.

"Ok, we're gonna make you a little less recognizable already," she told the other girl, dragging her in a corner.

Going behind the princess, she began to unwind her little braids.

"Hey…!"

"Your hairdo is too recognizable, Rel', sorry. Get out of your vest."

"W-what?" stammered the blonde feeling her hair slowly slide free on her shoulders.

She obeyed, a little disconcerted. Under the vest she had a white blouse.

"Hmm, will do," mused the brunette while looking at her from head to toe.

She put her fingers on the waist of her skirt, and this time Relena balked, frowning.

"We haven't got the time…"sighed Hilde, "Roll your skirt waist inside so that it looks shorter."

Blushing about showing her nude legs higher than knee level with a skirt that was light enough to fly around, the princess arranged her plaited skirt the best she could, while the cap-wearing black-haired girl was lifting her hair in a high ponytail and disheveled her bangs on the sides.

"It's too easy to see," murmured Relena, pointing to her waist, where the skirt was too visibly messed up.

Hilde helped her to rectify the problem the best way available then grabbed the vest and in an ample gesture circled her waist with it, hiding the upper part of the skirt. She knelt before Relena, making her blush even more, and dragged the socks so respectably pulled up down on her patent-leathered shoes, bunching the socks up.

"There we go!" Hilde exclaimed, looking up at her. "You're already looking less like a cute little doll. True, if someone looks too insistently…but at least they shouldn't stop us on sight."

She got up and after having pushed Relena in front of the entrance to help dissimulate her from an eventual passerby's glance, took off her T-shirt and put it in her hands. The princess blushed even more and turned her eyes away.

"What are you doing?

She had a large band around her belly, like those wrist bands sportsmen wear, approximately fifteen centimeters wide. She pushed it up on her chest, adjusting it so that her small breasts were flattened as much as they could be, then took the T-shirt back and put it on again, without this time tucking the ends into her waistband. It fell low on her thighs, hiding her curves. She slipped on the jeans vest she had around her waist, then pulled her cap much lower, half-hiding her face.

"Finished," she announced in a deep voice, and Relena started even as she was being dragged by the hand once again.

Her body language had suddenly totally changed. She didn't walk anymore with grace, subtly rolling her hips, but with big, nonchalant steps, and slightly squaring her shoulders. When you looked at her with attention, you could tell that she was a girl, Relena supposed… But she knew already that she was. Yes, if she succeeded in acting like she should all the way, they might not look at it more attentively.

"By the way, Rel'…" drawled the black-haired girl.

"Err… Yes?"

"Nice panties," the short-haired girl shot back in a malicious voice, dashing off.

Relena stayed frozen a few seconds, then, slowly turning red, ran after her.

"Ooooh you!!!"

Still laughing, Hilde caught her hand and dragged the princess after herself.

"You are impossible," pouted the longhaired girl.

"And proud of it!" said back her comrade.

"And there is no way to have the last word with you, is there?"

"Nope, there isn't."

Grumbling in a very unladylike way, the princess abandoned the idea of gain back some points for the moment.

There were three soldiers in the following street, who were marching toward the campus in a falsely nonchalant way. Relena tensed.

"You're gonna break my hand, sweetie," whispered Hilde.

"Sorry," answered Relena nervously, lowering her head.

She made as if looking into a shop window while they were walking past them, then sighed once they were far enough.

"Hey…?" she called softly once they were out of sight.

"Hm?"

"What if they recognize my car and they arrest us?"

"Good point. Do you have a cell phone?"

"Yes."

"Call your chauffeur and tell him to go back to your house, making the largest detour he can. Tell him to go north. We'll find another way."

"But if they follow him?"

"They'll have found a chauffeur in a car, driving around. So what? It isn't suspicious. They'll know you were supposed to be inside, but they won't be able to prove it. Ok?"

While Relena was calling Pargan to explain the situation, Hilde was glancing right and left in the street. Another group advanced, this one casually clothed, slower, discreetly screening the people mulling around, staring at any male teenagers they happened to walk past. But soldiers to the end of their nails; she recognized their way of walking in a group, and they all were packing. Hilde caught Relena's hand, dragging her through the crowd, till they were under the bus shelter, and backed her up against a panel, putting one hand on each side of her head and leaning toward her. Confused, the teenager stared at her.

The soldiers were staring at the people waiting at the bus stop now, Hilde could see them in the glass's reflection.

"What are you doing?" whispered Relena, unnerved to see her lean so close and block her so totally.

"Did you call your grandfather?" asked Hilde in a totally normal tone, not answering.

"Err… Yes, yes."

"Ok then," she answered in a voice as low and as sensual she could make it while still sounding like a boy.

One of the disguised soldiers was very close now, Hilde could have kicked him if she had wanted to. He glanced at them, walked a little closer. Relena's eyes widened slightly when she saw the way he always kept a hand on a bulge in his vest, and she tensed. The soldier, noting her reaction, stared at her more attentively and tried to glance over Hilde's shoulder to see her whole face.

The brunette winked at her comrade to calm her down, then leaned closer and approached her face with hers till they were brushing noses against each other, effectively blocking his sight of the young woman.

Relena's eyes were sky blue, but her pupils were so dilated by her fear that they had nearly swallowed all of her irises. So close, her scent was invading the she-wolf's nostrils, and at this distance, she could hear her heart, ba-bom, ba-bom, faster and faster. She felt her tremble where Hilde's wrist touched her shoulder, not yet visible to the eye, but enough to be easily perceptible.

"Everything's alright," she murmured to reassure her charge.

The soldier had stopped walking toward them, he was continuing on his previous path now, but Hilde realized from the corner of her eye that he was still glancing regularly toward them, and soon he would be to an angle where he could see their profiles.

Slightly raising her arm to put her elbow on the glass and thus hide their chins, the German girl took the last two centimeters still separating their bodies and kissed the young princess.

* * * * * *

They had to abandon the car a small distance away from the little town. A road block was in place and they couldn't get past. The four pilots left on foot through the forest, hoping that the barrages weren't already reaching through.

They needed the better part of an hour to arrive at Gundams. They put away their things then climbed in their cockpits, not turning the motors on yet, verifying first the state of the engines.

A loud "SHIT!" rang through the com link.

"Duo? What's going on?"

"Doing a scan of the region... The military block is nothing, only control checkpoints on the roads, but we're between them and a deployment of mobile suits that's making another barrage. I'm counting at least three hundreds in the area, and there is no way we can get away by one of the holes in the formation, we'll get caught on visuals way before, there is not enough cover. Fucking bitch!"

"That is nothing ..." grunted Heero, his voice gone all cold and soldier-like. "Turn on the local TV."

They saw and heard with stupor Lady Une announcing that the town was now under martial law as long as the terrorists it housed weren't found. It also encompassed an interdiction to use vehicles without authorization and a curfew at six PM. In the background, they could already hear numerous phones ringing from the switchboards, no doubt a virulent protestation from the citizens.

"She was rocked too close to the wall as a baby, that psycho-bitch!" shouted Duo, totally flabbergasted. "She's gonna take the inhabitants hostages because we've been here?!?"

"It's aberrant," acquiesced Wufei.

"What are we going to do? If we try to escape anyway, we risk finding ourselves fighting above the town, and those bastards will refuse to let the civilians leave..."

"We wait," decided Quatre. "We try before all to break through the enemy line and then we get away, no engaging in combat. We're not at advantage here. The mobile suits will chase after us, the soldiers should leave the town once we're away. Gundams can go faster and farther than Aries with the same amount of fuel, so we should be able to escape."

"Mmyeah..." mumbled Duo, not convinced.

"I called Trowa, he's going to come help us and try to distract them, but he can't approach too close, he would get spotted too early ..."

"Ok," acknowledged Heero.

"We just have to wait, then?"

"Yes..."

"That sucks."

* * *

General Kushrenada was certainly not expected in the town where Une had taken control, so, the soldiers guarding the road by which he had come nearly prevented him from going any farther. Luckily, annoyed by the waiting, he had opened his tinted window, letting the men recognize him.

When he arrived at the building where colonel Une was directing the operation, she was waiting for him on the front steps, saluting, visibly warned in a hurry by some soldier.

"Your Excellency, I wasn't expecting you here..." began the woman, walking after him in the hall.

"And I will admit to you that I didn't intend on coming," Treize lashed back in a dry tone, drier than it had ever been with her. "But I see that I shouldn't have trusted you with such a situation, you are visibly unable to accomplish a mission in a way that doesn't endanger the greater plan from which it is only but a part."

Une tensed, mortified. Since 05's evasion, he had slowly become... she didn't know. Faster to annoy ... him who was usually so calm, controlled and charming, he happened now to get unexpected mood shifts, and often showed visibly what he was thinking, him who usually was a master in the art of hiding his opinions. It was abnormal... She forced herself to remember those circumstances not to feel too harshly hit by his loss of patience with her, when she had always been his protégée.

"I... pardon me, your Excellency," she murmured, lowering her head.

Treize's eyes softened slightly and he turned on his heels to face her.

"Lady... I do not fault your devotion, but the ways you are using. Certainly, to capture the Gundam pilots is a priority. But it ISN'T worth losing the people's support in our efforts to do so. If we let ourselves get complacent on this, soon thousands of rebellions will be born, and we will be forced to win obedience through terror, instead of receiving it because the citizen really believe in us. And here, we will be no better than the Alliance and Romafeller. Do you understand?"

She lowered her head.

"It is why we mustn't use such brutal means. We have to stay more discreet."

"I understand now, your Excellency. I beg your pardon."

He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a smile, and she smiled back shyly, feeling like a child corrected by a benevolent parent.

"You don't need to, Lady. Let's just go and announce the end of the embargo. Some check points would have been probably better accepted, but now that the population is angry at us... I am afraid we don't have a choice."

"I am so sorry..."

"No, my Lady, it was my fault. I should have specified about what I was expecting of you. I gave you every means we had to complete your mission and you used them to the maximum, it was normal. I should have been more precise."

"Excellency..."

"Shh," he whispered, leaning a finger across her lips.

She blushed and lowered her head.

Half an hour later, in the command room, she was still blushing. Luckily, the General wasn't looking at her, his attention on the screen transmitting images coming from all around the town. He was observing the withdrawing of the troupes and their installation farther down the roads.

And suddenly, without one radar to warn the observers, an immense black, bat-winged shape jumped out of the trees covering the side of a small cliff, a gigantic scythe in hand.

"02!!" exclaimed Une, grabbing the micro. "Alert, alert, Gundam 02 sighted at the north-north-east of the town!!!"

But she had not finished her sentence that half of the closest unit had been destroyed before having caught on radar the Gundam. And then… Three other Gundams emerged from the trees after him to take care of the rest of the two closest units, and were then joined by yet another Gundam coming from BEHIND their lines, which showered with bullets the few MS that had not been damaged and could still fight. Then the Gundams turned heels and ran before the rest of the troops closed in on them.

"The reinforcement will never get here in time!!!" roared the young woman.

"Do not worry about that, my lady," answered Treize, a calm and amused little smile dancing on his lips.

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A/N: And NO Relena isn't contaminated. Same as Treize, at first. Dry kiss. No saliva, no contamination. ^__^ C'mon, Hilde has been a werewolf all her life, she knows what she can and can't do ^__^

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