Lou: I was thinking while you were asleep

- smiles shyly - . . . Hey, remember me? Well I am in fact still alive and writing; I honestly don't know why it took me so long to come up with this chapter . . . well actually I do, it's because every single instructor out there thinks that you have nothing better to do with your life than to study for their class. The good news is that the next chapter is finally the last one for MAD. For those reading Occam's Razor, Chapter 16 is up, and Chapter 17 should be up soon, and I promise that I'm going to try and get back on track with my regular updates.

Thank you for your continued reviews everyone; I can't tell you how much they help with the writing! But before we get to the story, since it's been such a long time since my last update, here's a quick run down of what's happened:

- Duo's kidnapped Relena to an old house near her Manor, Wufei's right behind them.

- Trowa and Hilde have found themselves locked in a panic room of Heero's design.

- Heero and Quatre have been captured by Dorothy, Sally, and Catherine within the Manor.

- Zechs and Noin are walking back to the Manor as their car broke down.

Alright, enjoy!

Mutually Assured Destruction

Chapter Eleven – Uncoordinated Efforts

Tynan

- - - - -

Three figures lingered in the middle of a darkly lit room; one (forcibly) seated in a large, ornate armchair, the other two before him, regarding him with both curiosity and caution and holding a phone out to the incapacitated individual.

"Do you think that Relena's bedroom is really the best place for him?"

"It's the only room in this house that no one is going to just go barging into. And at the rate we're going . . ." she swung around to face the man tied to the chair before her, "Heero, if you don't make the call they're going to storm the house and then this little scheme of yours will be discovered."

"Sally, he didn't respond the first five times, why –"

"Because Cathy, Agent Yuy here doesn't seem to understand that with the Peacecraft Manor on lock-down, the small army of Preventers forces stationed around it are going to think something happened and Relena's in danger! They've already phoned him four times," she waved a small black cell phone in front of her friend, "they're getting ready to blow up the front door and force their way in unless you call them and say that there was a system malfunction when you were testing it and not to try and enter the premise until you've corrected it.

"Besides," the brunette leveled her eyes at the man in front of her, "I would not want to be the one responsible for that once Relena gets back."

". . . Give me the phone."

"Right, like we're going to untie you. Just hold it up to his ear Cathy."

"You're not going to be able to keep me here very long."

"He's right. I think this is going to be trickier than we originally thought."

"Maybe we should take Dorothy's approach and knock him out."

"Cathy, what do you think Relena has in her bedroom that will actually knock out Heero Yuy?"

"It was just a suggestion! Besides, we can't leave him like this. He's right! He'll get out as soon as our backs are turned."

"Yes, well that's why I got the duct tape. I don't care how flexible or double jointed a person is, there is simply no way they can get out of a chair that all four of their extremities and their torso have been completely duct taped to."

"You're the doctor. But we still have to consider that he could just find a way to leave and take the chair with him."

"Yes . . . well about that, depending on how brave you're feeling . . ."

"What did you have in mind?"

"You see, previous to our involvement in this little . . . war, Hilde and Relena were successful in becoming, to my knowledge, the only people in history to ever have prevented Heero Yuy from leaving a room when and how he saw fit."

"Interesting, and how did they achieve this feat?"

"Well, that's where the bravery part comes in."

- - - - -

"Duo . . ."

There was a snorting sound followed by a grunt in reply.

"Duo!"

She poked him with her foot but still elicited no response.

"Damn it, Duo! Wake up!"

With a swift kick to the ribs, Duo Maxwell shot to his feet, looking around the room wildly for a moment before realizing where he was. "Geez Relena, way to give a guy a heart attack, you –"

But his hostage was in no mood, "Duo, you have got to be the worst kidnapper in history! What kind of a criminal falls asleep instead of guarding –"

"Hey! I wasn't asleep!"

She raised her eyebrows, "Oh, really? With the drooling, the twitching, and muttering to yourself, which might otherwise be described as a schizophrenic episode –"

"Alright! So I dozed off! You try sleeping on Heero's couch for three and half weeks, the guy's a freakin' insomniac, he goes to bed at like one in the morning and wakes up at five! How am I supposed to get any sleep with him –"

Both of them froze at the sound of footsteps crossing the floor on the level above them. Duo shoved Relena behind him, unsure if this person was one of the guys coming to back to the rendezvous point or one of the girls already coming to rescue their friend. He breathed a sigh of relief as Wufei appeared from the staircase; Relena groaned behind him.

"Hey! Glad to see you made it out man!" Duo strode forward to clap a hand on Wufei's shoulder; the Chinese man for his part only looked toward where Relena was pouting on the floor.

"Shouldn't you tie her up?"

Relena lifted her head to speak but was cut off by Duo, "Wufei, come on man, you really think she's gonna be able to get away?"

The Foreign Minister scoffed, but both men ignored her as their thoughts turned instead to strategy. "Are you the only other one that made it out?"

Wufei nodded, "As far as I know. Trowa's sister and Sally captured Yuy and Catalonia knocked out Winner before the alarm even went off."

"What about Trowa?"

"I don't know," he shrugged in reply, "last I saw him he was chasing your girlfriend. They probably got him too when the place got locked down."

"Great." Duo sighed and threw himself down on one of the many covered, dusty couches that littered the room, "So they got two of our guys –"

"Three, if you count Winner."

"Fine, three then, and we've just got the princess here. So now what?"

Wufei took a seat on the couch opposite him, "We wait, consider our options," he grinned in and uncharacteristic way and jerked his head toward Relena, "At some point they're going to try and get her back."

- - - - -

Trowa rolled his eyes, he wasn't usually one to lose his cool by any stretch of the imagination, but Hilde's incessant pacing was beginning to get to him. "Hilde, walking back and forth constantly like that isn't going to get the door open and you're making me dizzy, would you please just sit down?"

Hilde didn't even turn to look at him, not breaking her stride, "No, if I sit I'll start to think terrible things, like 'How hard is it to hire a hit man?' and 'Do they take credit cards?'"

"From what I heard you and your friends are not entirely without blame in this incident."

She rounded on him mercilessly, "You guys broke into Relena house to kidnap us! What could we possibly have done to –" A thought struck her. "Hey wait . . . what is it exactly that you were going to do once you had kidnapped us?"

Trowa shrugged nonchalantly, "Duo had some elaborate plan involving taking the four of you to a cabin out in the woods and enslaving you for the rest of the weekend –"

"Enslaving us?!" Hilde looked as though she might find a way to rip 8" tempered steel door off its reinforced hinges so she could go strangle her boyfriend.

Her co-captive however, did not seem to take note as he only nodded and continued on in a deadpan voice, "I think Duo had this little outfit all picked out for you and everything."

Trowa sat back and waited for the inevitable outburst, but to his surprise Hilde only sighed loudly and flung herself back against the wall behind her, "Trowa?"

"Yeah?"

"You'd know where I could find a good hit man, right?"

- - - - -

Zechs tried not to look confused as he stood on the grounds of his family's Brussels' manor, but considering the scene before him that was quite difficult. The house had apparently gone into lock down mode; all of the windows and doors were covered with plates of thick steel. However, despite the evident cause for alarm the Preventers officers that guarded the manor were only standing around outside, looking at it with an expression similar to his own. The exception to this was one man with a small crowd gathered around him; upon further inspection Zechs discovered that he was talking on a cell phone. As he approached the man, he heard just the end of his conversation.

"Understood, sir. I will issue the order, sir. Thank you, Agent Yuy."

The officer jumped nearly a foot in the air when Zechs tapped his shoulder, but that did not bother him at this moment, "Officer, was that Yuy?"

"S-sir, yes, Agent Yuy –"

"So what the hell is going on?!"

"Milliardo", Noin suddenly appeared by his side, "stop yelling and give him a chance to answer." She smiled sweetly to the man, "What the hell's going on officer?"

"Agent Noin, ma'am," he snapped to attention, "Ma'am I've just received word from Agent Yuy, who is current inside the dwelling, that there was a malfunction in the security system when he was running tests on it, ma'am. The system short circuited and went into lock-down, he's currently working to –"

"That's fine, Officer," Noin waved her hand, "you're dismissed."

Zechs waited until the man had saluted and was out of earshot before turning back to his wife, "Something's going on here."

She rolled her eyes in response, "No, really Milliardo? I would have thought that Heero always screws up routine system –"

"Come on." he cut her off as he grabbed her hand and began leading her around the side of the manor.

"Where are we going?"

"There's a hidden door in the gardener's shed that leads to a tunnel that goes into the manor; I have the access code. Yuy set it up so Relena could get out if the manor was on lock down and needed to escape, but it should work both ways."

Noin sighed and allowed her husband to usher her through one of the gardens, the shed coming into view as they rounded a corner. She couldn't help the feeling that they might be better off just waiting outside.

- - - - -

"So you tied –"

"Duct taped." Cathy corrected.

"Yes, my apologies, you duct taped Heero to a chair, naked, and hid him in Relena's bedroom." Dorothy tilted her head to the side as she regarded her friends.

Said two women nodded sharply, clearly very proud of their achievement; the blonde woman, in turn simply cast them a sly and devious smile, before answering with a slight laugh, "Well, he won't be going anywhere at least." She turned from them and flipped her hair over her shoulder, "However, you're a couple weeks late, Relena's birthday was the 7th."

As her friend broke down into giggles, she gestured for them to follow her through the kitchen and into the atrium around the back of the mansion. The scene they came upon was . . . odd to say the least. The usually open room was thrown into near darkness by the steel panels that now covered the large floor to ceiling windows. The only light came from several lamps which had been placed around an elegant wrought iron café style table, which was set for afternoon tea. In one of the two seats was a desperate and slightly frightened looking Quatre Winner, gagged and tied to his chair.

Sally and Cathy took in the sight as Dorothy continued forward, planting herself in the chair opposite the young businessman and lifting her tea cup to her lips, taking a sip of the dark liquid. "Now, Mr. Winner," she set the delicate china back down, "I have a few questions to ask you."

Quatre mumbled unintelligibly against the gag but Dorothy ignored him as she stood and leaned over the table menacingly, "We have you, and Yuy's tied up upstairs, but I think we both know that we won't be getting anything out of him, so this falls to you." She reached forward and pulled the gag out of his mouth, "Barton, Maxwell, and Chang got away with Relena and Hilde, where did they take them!?"

"I don't know!" Quatre gasped, looked up to Dorothy, "Miss Dorothy, I swear I don't know anything about this! I came here to warn you, I never thought that –"

"Liar!!" She pounded the table, rattling the china, "I know that you've been with them all along, you're the only one who could have given them the information they needed to pull off that little stunt at the restaurant and the roof top!"

"No!" Quatre recoiled, a look of true horror on his face, "No, Dorothy, please, it was an accident, I swear that I didn't mean –"

"Enough!" she silenced him with a wave of her hand and after a tense moment settled herself back down in her chair, "I can see, Mr. Winner, that this is getting us no where," she shook her head and lifted her glass of tea to her lips again, draining it, "you're forcing me to do this."

Quatre's eyes widened in horror as Dorothy released the delicate piece of china and allowed it to plummet to the ground, shattering into innumerable pieces on the cold, unforgiving floor. "Dorothy, what are you doing?! That's the tea set I gave Miss Relena! It belonged to Queen Victoria of England, it's priceless!"

Dorothy lowered her eyes solemnly and touched her finger tips together on top of the table, "I derive no pleasure from this, Mr. Winner, however" she reached across the setting and lifted his cup, saucer and all, still filled to the brim, and held it over the edge of the table, "if you will not cooperate, I shall have to continue –"

"But I don't know anything!!"

"Fine then."

Cathy and Sally both flinched at the sound of breaking glass followed by Quatre's anguished yells.

- - - - -

"So for like a month I devote every minute of free time I have to this proposal. I do the research, I check the statistics, cover all my bases, everything! So I go to see Une, to give her my proposal, she takes one look at it and tells me to leave her office, and after she pushed me out and slammed the door I hear her laughing in there! Can you believe that?!""

Relena had stopped trying to sound interested over an hour, "It's shocking Duo, truly shocking. I mean, how could Commander Une not understand the benefits that the Preventers Bureau would reap from forming a 'Ninja Division'?"

Her sarcasm apparently went unnoticed, "I know! I even volunteered to lead it!"

Relena sighed and let her head fall back against the wall behind her. Duo had not stopped ranting since Wufei had arrived. The Chinese man for his part was seated on the couch opposite them, eyes close and perfectly still and silent. How he could tune out Duo, Relena could not even begin to guess, but she was getting restless. "So are you guys just going to sit here and do nothing?"

"We're waiting." Wufei replied in a deadpan voice.

Relena gave a humorless laugh, "Waiting for what? An army of Preventers to show up?"

Wufei's eyes opened and Relena found herself locked with the obsidian orbs, "I hardly think that your friends are going to send anyone after us . . . not that they'd know where to look anyway. But also," his face broke into a sly smile, "I don't think they're going to be so willing to admit to your own wrong doings in all this."

"Wrong doings?" Relena rolled her eyes, "First, even if we had broken any laws, you and Duo went far beyond our transgressions when you kidnapped a member of the Prime Minister's Cabinet."

"Oh, see you have this all wrong, Foreign Minister, we were only securing you to be brought in for questioning as to your role in falsifying official Preventer's documents."

Relena practically choked in surprise, "Falsifying doc – what are talking about?"

Wufei leaned back in the covered couch, "You and Maxwell's girlfriend took it upon yourselves to sign Maxwell and Yuy up for an event they never consented to attend –"

"Oh yes, this as opposed to repeated events of breaking in and entering –"

" – representing yourselves as them and therefore falsifying –"

" – an ESUN cabinet member's office no less!"

"Hey guys," Duo lifted his head and waved for his friends' attention, "come on, let's not make this –"

"You stay out of this!" they responded in unison before going back at each other's throats.

- - - - -

Heero shifted uncomfortably in his chair . . . this day was not going as he had planned. He took a minute to evaluate his situation. The extraction operation had been a near complete failure, he had been captured, as had Quatre who had now become more of a liability than anything useful. Trowa and Wufei's whereabouts were unknown; only Duo's escape with Relena was confirmed. As for himself he was duct taped to a large armchair and hidden in Relena's bedroom after Catherine and Sally had cut all of his clothes off of him. As if all of this was not bad enough, he couldn't find anything in Relena's plush, comfortable bedroom to aid him in his bid for freedom, and even if he could get himself out of the chair, the fact was that he was still completely naked.

The faint sound of a scream somewhere off in the distance brought Heero out of his thoughts. It sounded as though Dorothy was doing something . . . unpleasant to Quatre. He couldn't help but feel a little bad, Quatre was after all for all intents and purposes an innocent bystander in this affair; on top of that he wouldn't wish an enraged Dorothy Catalonia upon anyone . . .

No, today was definitely not going as he had planned.

- - - - -

"That's odd."

Hilde lifted her head to where Trowa was staring at one of the many computer screens that lined the walls of the small room. "Did you find a way to get us out of here?"

"No," Trowa shook his head, "but apparently someone found a way to get in." He pointed to one of the screens which was displaying a map of some kind. Along one of the conduits was a line of blinking red lights, slowly but steadily more lights were coming on. "There's someone walking down this hallway, those blinking lights are the switches they're setting off as they go."

"Heero set up tracking switches along every hall in the Manor?"

"Just one hall . . . and it's actually not in the Manor." Trowa pointed to the lights on the screen again, "It looks like someone's coming in from the outside."

"Like through a secret tunnel?"

"Mm-hm."

"That tunnel doesn't happen to go here by chance, does it?"

- - - - -

"Grand theft auto, Foreign Minister!"

"We brought them back, Agent Chang!"

"Then add illegal trespassing into Preventer's restricted areas!"

"Trespassing?! How about trespassing into an ESUN's official's office and destruction of personal and government property?!"

"We didn't destroy it, we just attached it to your ceiling! You got it all down!!"

"Alright, both of you did things that you shouldn't have –"

"Shut-up, Maxwell!"

- - - - -

Noin ducked her head as she followed her husband down the dimly lit hallway. By her best guess they were under the Manor now. But where they were going she couldn't say.

In front of her, Zechs stopped abruptly, and signaled with his flashlight for her stop as well. She squinted into the darkness and discovered a large, steel door in front of them. "Are we at the end?"

"Almost," Zechs was punching numbers into a small keypad next to the door. It beeped an affirmative sound and the blonde man seized the massive, wrought iron handle and began to pull the door open. "there's a set of stairs back here that will take us inside."

"And where will that bring us?"

Zechs grunted under the strain of the door, but finally managed to pull it all the way open, "The third story of the house, to a hidden door in Relena's closet." He started up the narrow, spiral set of stairs, gesturing for her to follow. "Yuy put it there so that she'd have a way out if something ever happened."

Noin nodded, even though she knew her husband couldn't see and concentrated on getting up the perilous stairway, "Milliardo, what do you think is going on?"

"I have no idea," he jumped the last step onto the landing, and turned around to give his wife a hand up before handing her the flashlight as he pushed against the trap door in the ceiling, lifting it up and allowing light to spill into the stairwell, "but I have no doubt that Yuy's got something to do with it."

With a final push, he moved the piece of wood aside and pulled himself up through the opening, Noin right behind them. They found themselves in Relena's spacious walk-in closet, her vast wardrobe surrounding them on all sides. Just as Zechs was about to begin making his way towards the door he froze, there was a sound coming from Relena's bedroom. Zech's met his wife's eyes, and she nodded in silent agreement; both drew their guns and made their way stealthy towards the door.

With one swift kick it broke open and the couple burst into the room, "Preventers, freeze or –"

With a sharp gasp, Noin covered her eyes and ducked back into the closet; her husband, on the other hand, gasped and sputtered, rooted to where he stood as their eyes came to rest on the room's sole occupant.

"Wha – but . . . What the hell, Yuy?!"

Heero stared back at him like a deer caught in headlights, eyes wide as he struggled to speak against the duct tape over his mouth.

Zechs, for his part seemed to have recovered from his state of shock and advanced menacingly on Heero, "Yuy, where the hell is Relena and why are you naked and tied to a chair in her bedro –"

His words were cut off as he was jerked back into the closet by his wife, who slammed the door shut behind him. "Lu, what are you –"

"Milliardo, I think you need to take a minute to think about this situation –"

"A van full of the pilots came it, only one of them went out, the mansion's on lock down, the Preventer's have no idea what's going on, Relena's missing, and Yuy's taped to a chair in her bedroom, and he's naked!"

"Alright, well that sounds about right . . ." Noin suppressed a giggle and leaned against the wall, "So this is probably just about your worst nightmare, huh?"

Zechs raked his hand through his hair as he began pacing, "No, this is like my fifth worst nightmare . . . maybe my fourth, no fifth . . . fourth of fifth, I didn't bring the list with me!!" He sighed and let his shoulders fall, "So what do we do?"

"Well," Noin started riffling through the racks of clothes behind her, "we should probably try and find something for Heero to wear, then go out there and ask him what he knows about what's going on here."

- - - - -

"Illegal access to the Preventer's mainframe and possession of grotesque pornographic images!"

"Poisoning a government official and two private citizens and impersonation of a cab driver!"

"Guys, really . . . come on –"

"He said to shut-up Maxwell!"

- - - - -

Sally leaned back in her seat next to Catherine. The floor in front of them was covered in shards of broken china, puddles of tea, and the occasional smashed pastry. At the center of all of it sat a confident and composed Dorothy and opposite her a disheveled, pathetic, shell of a man. Sweat glistened his brow and his normally spotless clothes were covered with speckles of tea and jelly. Sally wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.

Quatre lifted his head, his eyes locking with his tormenter's, his voice was weak, "Miss Dorothy, please . . . I'm begging you . . . I – I don't know anything, I can't –"

"Mr. Winner," Dorothy poured more tea into a new cup, and took a sip, "we've been through this, I simply don't believe you." She set the cup back down on its saucer then lifted both and held them over the edge of the table, above the pile of shattered china. "And as before, if you continue to lie to me –" Dorothy stopped dead at the sound of someone approaching the room.

Sally and Catherine heard it too, the latter jumping from her seat and arming herself with one of throwing knives. But she lowered it in shock as the last three people she expected to see entered the room.

Noin came in first, followed by her husband who was standing very close to Heero . . . who Catherine noticed was wearing what appeared to be a pair of Relena's pajama pants and an oversized t-shirt. Upon further inspection she discovered that the two men were taped together at the wrist. She looked desperately to Sally, hoping that the older woman could come up with a logical explanation for this scene, but her friend only returned her panic stricken look.

Dorothy however, stood from her seat and smiled pleasantly, as if there were nothing strange going on. "Why Milliardo, Lucrezia how good to see you, we were getting worried about –"

"Don't bother Dorothy," Noin cut her off, "Heero's already told us what's been going on."

The blonde woman looked incredulous at this statement, "H-he told you?!"

"Yes," Zechs answered for her as he stepped forward, dragging Heero with him and pulled two chairs up to the table, placing himself in the one next to Dorothy and Heero in the one next to Quatre, "Now, none of us are leaving this room until we all come to an agreement as to how we're going to resolve this little on going conflict." He glared in Heero's directions, "We'll start with you two. Where did Maxwell, Chang, and Barton take my sister and Hilde?"

- - - - -

"Trespassing in a men's locker room!"

"Illegal application of epoxy to government property!"

"Alright, enough both of you!"

"Shut-up, Maxwell!"