A woman with long straight black hair exited the wedding party and made her way to the hilltop near where Heero leaned on his boulder. Neither took notice of the other, for both sets of eyes were firmly focused on the bride and groom. The reasons for their intense scrutiny were very different and yet quite similar.

The woman considered the mission she was carrying out. She had infiltrated the party easily enough. She had simply showed the guards the edited copy she had made of the invitation she had "borrowed" from a local politician. It's amazing what a coy smile and a little ego-boosting from a pretty face could get you. After mingling amongst the guests long enough to alley any suspicions, she had passed by the raised gazebo prepared for the vows before the ceremonies started. She had accidentally on purpose dropped her handbag under it and pretend to be retrieving it. In reality she had wired up the small but, powerful explosive, that had lain hidden in the lining of her handbag, to the underside of the platform. Things went well, a member of security had even offered her a hand up.

During the vows she had slipped out to the restrooms. She added water marks to her face and left the grounds, telling the guards she had received a emergency call regarding her sister. In fact it had been rather easy minus wearing the flowy dress instead of her normal jeans and tee. The woman, disgusted, gave a stiff tug at the offensive garment. The only task that had been tricky was calculating how far away she would have to stand to avoid the shock-wave of the blast; it's hard to account for the ever changing grounds of high profile weddings with multiple planners was a tactical nightmare. She was still worried about that particular detail. Shifting her feet nervously and wringing her extremely pale hands, she fretted about it further. Seeing the final layout gave her the sinking feeling that she had done the calculations wrong. Algebra had never been her best subject and would make this a tricky task at the best of times, which this most definitely was not. At this point the woman tossed her hair over her shoulder mournfully, what would be would be. No time remained to make any changes to the plan it was time she ended this party.

Heero watched as Relena and Sameth shared their first kiss as husband and wife. He gave a sigh of relief and regret, but it had been too soon. The world turn red and orange, not from a glorious sunset of a perfect day, but as if the fires of hell had swallowed up the plain below. He felt like someone had slowed the world down. Time crawled as the explosion spread. Heero barely managed to regain enough sense to sink behind the lone bolder he had been leaning on as the explosion approached . He heard the force of the blast slam things into his meager shelter. He felt the force of the shock-wave pressing down on him as it passed the bolder. It push him over. The last thing he felt was his head connecting with rock below.

The woman had pushed the button on her detonator, saying 'operation raven complete.' She turned with the sound of the blast in her ears and felt the blast force hurl something into her head. Her last coherent thought was that wedding planners should be shot and Algebra was demonic. She had messed up the figures yet again.

The woman opened her eyes and gingerly rotated her head to remove her hair from her face. Blurs and shadows slowly solidified into a room, a stinking medical room. As she looked around she found she appeared to be inside some sort of militarily secured med-bay and at the foot of her bed was what appeared to be five young men arguing. The painful echo of her own heart beat in her head was too loud and persistent for her to make out what they were saying.

The woman let out a small groan of pain as she tried to sit up. The next thing she saw was the barrel of a gun firmly pointed between her eyes...

Cliffy-ish? :) Leave a review if you wish. I happy even for a hello. Flames are not that helpful (only YOU can prevent forest fires!), though CONSTRUCTIVE criticism is a writers best friend.