Chapter Seven: Liberate the Children

 

*Trowa had finished with the last of his guards three minutes ago. Now he was standing in the lobby waiting for Quatre to join him. Crossing his arms, he fingered the gun he held in his right hand. Spinning it back, then forward, then back again he was incredibly bored. Soon enough, Quatre came huffing and puffing out of the corridor to his left.

“Done?” He asked the blonde boy.

“Yeah, I just finished with the last of them. Did you notice anything, unusual, about these senior gang members?” Quatre finally caught his breath.

“You mean the fact that half of them are over forty and are heavily overweight? No I didn’t notice anything at all.” The taller boy smirked at the smaller Arabian.

“Funny Trowa. I meant it. If they’re over forty, how can they bee seniors in high school? I mean, we’re only twenty and we finished high school almost four years ago.”

“Simple. They are not from a simple high school gang. Heard from Hiiro, Duo, or Wufei yet?” Trowa asked him, almost with an impatient tone in his voice.

“No. Do you think they’re all alright?” Quatre asked him worriedly.

“They’re fine. Give them time.” Trowa responded, putting away his gun. I’m going to explain to the teachers what the evacuation process will be like. Wait here and keep a look out. When I’m finished, you go do the same to your floor.”

“Sounds good. See you soon, and watch your back.” But Trowa was already gone. Quatre shook his head with a small grin playing across his features. That was such a Trowa thing to do, disappear like that…

“Maxwell, have you finished yet?” Wufei called down the hall softly.

“Sure Wu-man! I finished about five minutes ago. You sure are getting slow in your old age. Has Sally noticed a change in your pace in bed?” Duo grinned idiotically and was rewarded with a huge smack upside the head courtesy of Wufei.

“I will overlook that injustice. Now is not the time. Any word from Quatre, Trowa, or Hiiro yet?”

“Nah. They must be pretty busy. I say we try to contact Quatre though. He’ll be the most worried over us. Hiiro’s probably almost done, but if he’s still working, he’ll be mad that we disturbed him.”

“Agreed. One of us should stay here and keep watch while the other goes to the second floor.” Wufei answered him with a knowing nod.

“I thought they were going to meet on the first floor in that lobby?” Duo corrected him with a smug grin.

“Fine. Since you know your way around so well Maxwell, you go find Quatre.” Wufei tried to keep his anger in.

“Maybe I will!” Duo fake cried.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish. Now get lost Maxwell.” He shoved Duo downwards, towards the stairs.

“Fine. I know when I’m not wanted. Sheesh, some guys and all of their…” He continued to mumble under his breath until Wufei couldn’t hear him anymore.

Hiiro was caught in a dilemma. Which one should he throw the knife at? Both guards were going for their walkie-talkies to warn the others. Well, he had to pick quickly, so he picked the one who had the walkie-talkie closer to his mouth. Taken careful aim, Hiiro threw the knife with deadly accuracy. It came to a halt with a thick dull thud as it hit the body of the gang member and lodged within the base of his neck. The boy fell over dead instantly. The other kept trying to radio for help until Hiiro was able to knock the radio out of his hand. But it was too late; the damage had been done. Quickly finishing off the guard in much the same manner as the first, Hiiro came out of the fight with only a scratch on his left forearm. Blood began to seep from the deep wound, but he paid it no heed, he had no time. Racing towards the stairwell he yelled down to whoever was there.

“Wufei! Duo!” He called.

“Yui? What’s happened? Have you finished?” ‘Wufei!’ Hiiro thought.

“No! Code red! Evacuate the students now as quickly as you can. You need to handle this floor too, I still have to get to the kindergarten rooms!”

“Understood! I’ll tell the others!”

“Acknowledged!” Hiiro yelled back. Soldiers were already beginning to come pouring down the upper stairwell towards him. This was not good. Taking out one of his guns, he began to resort to his last method: shooting the living daylights out of the punks who thought they could get away with holding a school hostage.

Four guards came at him at once while the other five stood at the top of the stairs watching and smirking as Hiiro took them on. The first boy seemed young, only seventeen or so. He charged Hiiro first, carelessly neglecting to watch Hiiro’s left hand. While Hiiro dropped his empty gun from his right hand, he slammed his left hand deep into the stomach of the unsuspecting boy. The boy crumpled to the floor in a fit of mad coughing. Soon he was spitting up blood as well. The next boy turned to face Hiiro. He was a little more wary, not lunging until he had picked up a heavy piece of metal. Swinging madly and losing control of the metal pipe, Hiiro was able to kick the already off balance boy down the stairs behind him and watch as he tumbled down, probably breaking his neck, if not killing him.

The next two charged him at the same time, and were both rewarded the same fate. Hiiro simply sidestepped them and they both went flying, one down the stairs cracking something in the process, and the other crushing his head into the wall. The other soldiers at the top of the stairs were apparently not pleased with Hiiro’s actions. They brought out their heavy-duty guns and tried to take aim. Unfortunately for them, Hiiro was faster. Before they could take proper aim, he was running up the stairs coming straight for them.

>>>)(<<<

            “Serena? What’s going on?” Serena heard her scared friend’s voice and wondered much of the same thoughts. All of a sudden the cops were abuzz with news and jobs and energy. Those who had been eating stopped and hid the food. The police cars were beginning to move back. The police began trying to clear the civilians from the area near the yellow tape. In fact, they moved the entire yellow tape area back almost ten yards. The cops that weren’t working were suddenly busy putting on bulletproof vests and checking their guns for the number of bullets. Gunshots came from within the school. Serena knew immediately something had gone wrong inside.

            “Excuse me sir?” Serena stopped the Chief of Police.

            “Oh, hello again Miss. Serena. Look, I know you’re allowed to be here, but please get back. In fact, would you move the Gundam SWAT team’s car back as well? I know you’re with them…” He began.

            “Yes, sure I’ll move it back, but what’s going on, what’s happening?” Serena pressed him.

            “Oh, err, um, well,”

            “Just spit it out!” Hilde yelled at him. Serena had to smile at her actions. That as Hilde for you, wild and forceful as ever.

            “We’ve gotten a threat on the building.” The Chief spit out.

            “That’s nothing new.” Muttered Serena. She and Hilde gave half grins.

            “No, I mean a bomb threat. Apparently they know we’ve got men on the inside and they are threatening to blow the entire school up.”  Serena and Hilde went silent; any thought of grinning became non-existent. Serena’s heart raced a thousand miles a minute. Her son was still in there! Oh Ben! And Hiiro… Hold it. She had only just met him eleven hours ago, and she was worried about him? Of course she was worried about him! He was a person, someone she knew that was stuck in the building too. But if that was so, why wasn’t she as worried about Quatre or Trowa or Wufei or Duo? What put Hiiro on the same level of worry as her own son? Oh, poor Ben!

            “Serena? Did you hear me?” She tuned back into reality to find Hilde waving a hand in front of her. “Serena? We need to move Duo’s car. Do you have the key?”

            “Yeah, Hiiro gave it to me. And it’s Hiiro’s car, not Duo’s. You want to drive?”

            “Sure.” And Hilde took the keys form Serena’s limp grasp.

            “Just don’t kill us. I’d like to be here when Ben and Hiiro come out of that building in perfect condition.” She smirked. They would be alright. They just had to be.

>>>)(<<<

            “Get the kids in a single file line, now! The line up at the door and wait for me to come back and get you!” Trowa called to a teacher from the door of the classroom. She nodded to him and wondered what had happened to make them speed up the evacuation process. Nevertheless, she gathered the kids and lined them up as told.

            Trowa raced from room to room on the second floor organizing the teachers and classes into lines. By now Quatre already had the first few classes walking out in perfect silence. They were slipping away form the school without being noticed due to the dark moonless night. Though there were some flares, they did not light up the school campus enough to make a difference.

            Now it was Trowa’s floor’s turn. As he gathered the teachers and their students in lines at their doors, he picked the first class to line up at the stairwell. Then he picked a class form the other side of the hall to go behind them, then another class from the first side. Something was not right; he could feel it. But he couldn’t do anything about it. All he could do was pray Hiiro bought him and the other enough time to evacuate the school.

            Duo was already lining up the kids on his floor too. Picking random classes to go one after another, he already had the entire hall filled classes and students. The unusual thing was the hallways were dead silent. The children had been warned beforehand to be quiet in the halls, but Duo had never expected children to do this well. It just went to prove, children really were smarter then they were given credit for.

            Looking down the stairwell Duo could see the last of Quatre’s group and the first of Trowa’s group exiting the school doors. They were officially one sixth of the way clear. And at the rate Trowa’s groups were moving, they would be two sixths of the way clear in no time. Duo sighed and looked up the stairwell to see Wufei’s groups all ready to go as well. But where was Hiiro?

            Hiiro was at the moment struggling to pull himself up. He was hanging onto the railing if the stairs, dangling in a most unpleasant position. One giant man was trying to crush his fingers by stepping on them while he was holding on. Finally he was able to gather enough strength to swing one of his legs around, Hiiro kicked the big guy in the back of his knee. The man went down on his knees, giving Hiiro the chance he needed to haul himself to the floor, but there was no time for him to catch his breath. Before the big man could stand, Hiiro used the butt of his gun to knock the man out. With him out of the way, Hiiro moved on to the first classroom.

            What he found was not pretty. A hysterical teacher was being held at gunpoint by one of the gang members.  The rest of the kids in the class were simply watching and staring at their teacher and mentor having her nervous breakdown. This was wonderful. These kids would probably be traumatized for life much like himself. No. He wouldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t let this gang create another him. Sneaking up behind the teacher and the man holding the gun to her head, he once again just used the butt of his handgun to knock the man unconscious. He would have killed him, but there were children present. Telling the kids not to move and to stay very quiet, he left some instructions with the falling apart teacher, hoping she would be able to get her act together enough to line the kids up and keep them quiet. He did need to move on after all.  As he was leaving, an idea struck him. Bending down to the children’s level, he asked them in his nicest possible voice the question that had been burning in his mind for over an hour.

            “Are any of you Benjamin Tsukino?” When all of the kids answered him no, he went father. “Do you know where he is?”

            “He’s in the room two doors over.” Called out a mystery kid from the crowd.

            “Thanks.” With that, Hiiro walked out of the door to the next room. It seemed security had been tightened, but not enough to stop him. Now there were guards in every room when before they had only been in every other. Each class Hiiro liberated quickly lined up and the little kindergarteners followed their teacher out the door and down to the next floor into the mix with Wufei’s floor’s classes.

            Hiiro had saved the one room he wanted to go into the most last. Now as he kicked in the door, he looked around. All of the students sat quietly on the floor looking up at him. The teacher was sitting calmly on the floor at the head of the class. Then Hiiro saw it. Four men, three huge and one slightly smaller off to the right corner of the front of the room. The smaller one moved forward to speak.

            “So you’re the fool who ruined my plans. You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, you know that?”

            “Hn. What kind of a man holds a school hostage?” Hiiro asked him, trying to figure out a way to evacuate the room.

            “I’m the kind of man who would hold a school hostage. Have a problem?” The man smirked and Hiiro snorted.

            “You’re not a man. A man is human. You haven’t evolved that far yet.” Hiiro responded in his icy monotone voice.

            “Touché sir. You are young for this job too. Hmm. Well? Are you going to kill me and liberate the classroom like you’ve done to the rest of the school, or are you just going to stand here all day?”

            “What’s the catch?” Hiiro asked him. Surely this man was not going to just let the class go?

            “I’ll tell you after the class is gone. Besides. They aren’t gone yet, they won’t have made it out of the school doors when I’m done with you.”

            “Hn.” Hiiro grunted. Then he turned to the class and their teacher. “Line up single file and head down the stairs. Do not stop, and do not look down the halls. Another of my comrades will see that you get out safely.”

            “Are you here to save us?” Asked a little boy with black hair and wild blue eyes. Hiiro glanced at him, then glanced back. The eyes… there was no doubt that this little boy was Ben, Serena’s son.  Hiiro’s disposition slackened. This kid’s eyes did the same thing as his mother’s; they trapped him in their innocence and longing.

            “Yes, I’m here to save you. Go on Ben, you mom’s waiting for you.”

            “Mom? You know my mom?” The little boy stared in awe. Hiiro just nodded.

            “Go on, and tell her I said I kept my promise.”

            “I promise I’ll tell her. Thank you! Wait, what’s your name?”

“Hiiro. Hiiro Yui.” Hiiro responded as Ben’s teacher herded him out with the last of the children. Now it was just Hiiro and the four gang leaders.*