Disclaimer:  So everyone knows, the girls are singing Precious Things by Tori Amos, who just happens to be one of my idols, and i would never try to claim her work.

The Three Trials for Power

By Lars the Goddess

Part VI

Chapter 10

It was Sunday morning and Heero sat at his laptop doing last minute research for the mission that night. The five boys had skipped chapel and were preparing for the mission as well. Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei had gone to check on their Gundams while Duo had gone for supplies, such as extra ammo, which they desperately needed. Their supply had been fairly depleted by the last mission they were on.

His eyes narrowed as he remembered a frantic Wufei coming to the dorm room they shared last night and accused Duo and the girls of using evil witchcraft against him. He had quickly told the boy he was seeing things and to go to sleep, knowing that the Chinese boy would only make the situation worse if he found out the truth.

The messy haired boy shut down his computer, everything was in order for that night. He stood and looked at the clock. Duo had left over two hours ago, where could the idiot be? He should have been back by now. The Japanese pilot decided it would be best if he searched for him, Deathscythe’s pilot probably just got distracted and forgot he was wondering around with an extraordinary amount of weapons and ammo on his person.

As he was walking around campus, he saw a blur of black entering the performing arts theater and thought he saw the end of a braid disappear just before the door shut. Best bet was that the braided pilot was in there. Heero turned and walked in the direction of the door, noting the sound of music coming from inside. Walking through the door, he almost ran into Duo, Quatre and Trowa who all stood entranced in the dimly lit aisle. On stage was none other than Anika playing the piano and Cyanea at a microphone singing. The four of them stood enraptured as they watched, only Quatre’s attention seemed to be on a figure in one of the seats in front. She had long black hair and was working on a laptop. Heero realized that it was Montana, then let his attention go back to the girls on stage. They had started a new song, completely oblivious to the boys watching from the back.

***  Anika was really getting into the music as she played the introduction. Trowa had to admit that she didn’t seem as innocent as she appeared He also had to admit that he liked it. Suddenly, there was movement beside him and he turned to see Duo, with a bookbag on his back, staring slack jawed at Cyanea. Deciding to ignore him, he turned his attention back to the beautiful girl pounding away at the schools grand piano.

***  Duo caught his breath as he heard the beautiful alto voice fill the hall. He was fascinated as he watched her sing, completely caught up in her world. Her movements were graceful as she swayed with the music.

Running after the rain

As she started to sing the chorus, her voice grew stronger. She closed her eyes and let the music carry her, unaware of the harmony that Anika was singing in a strong soprano.

Let them break their hold on me

Her eyes grew dark as she seemed to be caught up in old memories. She must have had some bad experiences with boys. I better make sure that I don’t make the same mistakes they did, Duo thought.

That doesn’t make you Jesus

At this, Duo quickly grabbed his cross and shoved it beneath his shirt, hidden from view. He heard a snicker and turned to glare at Trowa before returning his full attention to the stage where his goddess stood.

Their hold on me

Anika once again joined in for the chorus.

Where the pretty girls are

Pure anger entered the voices of Cy and Anika as the song picked up pace.

Let it break their hold on me

Silence reigned through the performance hall as Anika played the last note. The girls still had not noticed the four boys standing in almost a state of shock at the back. Suddenly, the words "I got it!" rang through the hall breaking the spell of the song. Duo turned his head in the direction of Montana with the rest of the guys. He hadn’t even realized she was there.

"Alright!" Anika said. "Let’s see what we found," she jumped off the side of the stage and went to set by her friend.

***  "What have you got?" a voice rang out from the back of the performance hall. Cyanea’s head turned quickly to find four boys standing there staring curiously at them.

"Milk?" Anika offered as she gave them her innocent look.

Cy gave her a strange look, then she realized what four boys they were. She turned red as she realized Duo was with them. How long have they been there?! Did they see me singing? Oh, I hope not. Oh, no! What if they find out we hacked into their school files!

She stood up and glared at them, deciding it would be best to take the defensive. "How long have you been standing there?" she demanded while crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Duo, Trowa and Quatre all looked away and blushed at the memory of her singing, not that they didn’t like it. Only Heero met her gaze. "Long enough," he said as he raised an eyebrow to leave no question that he had witnessed her sing along with the others.

She turned away, not sure whether to be angry, embarrassed or completely unaffected by their presence. "So, what did you find?" Heero asked causing her to look back up at him.

"Oh, not much," Montana cut in. "We were hoping to find a good amount of bribery on Mr. Runner, he’s been on our asses about our odd behavior."

Heero glared at them a second longer before turning to say something to the other three boys then leaving. The boys walked down to stand by the girls. "You know, lying to him isn’t going to help you earn his trust," Quatre said as he looked at what was really on the screen. "Anyway, if you really didn’t want Duo to know you were looking at his file, you would have shut the computer.

"What!" Duo shouted. Cy flinched with a bit of guilt, she didn’t want to make him angry. "Man, what the hell are you thinking. My picture looks terrible in there!" he said before giving her a huge smile.

"You mean, you aren’t mad?" Anika asked as she stared shyly up at him.

He shrugged, "I won’t be if you give me a good reason for hacking into it and tell me if you did this with anyone else’s files," he said as he gestured to his friends.

They shook their heads, "Only yours. We were just curious about you. No one seems to know anything about where you came from before you moved here. In fact, you don’t talk about your past much at all. At least not as much as Quatre and Trowa do."
Duo’s eyes clouded and his smile faltered for a second, "Let’s just say that my past was uneventful and a complete bore." Cy knew from the look that briefly crossed his face that his comment was one of the biggest understatements of the world. She watched him as he winked at her and gave her another brilliant smile. "All you had to do was ask me, instead of breaking my trust."

"I’m really sorry," Cy said, even as she filed away in her mind to remember to ask him for the truth sometime. Montana nodded and turned off her computer. "We’ll never do it again, we promise. However, I wouldn’t mind knowing where you’re from," the red haired girl added, deciding to use the situation to milk some information out of her…boyfriend? Hmm…I like the sound of that!

"I’m from L2," he told her with a smile. "I hope you three keep your word."

"Never again," Anika said with a look of pure innocence on her face. She looked over to Trowa. "Forgiven?"

The stoic boy nodded and gave her a slight smile. Cyanea studied him a little closer. I wonder why he’s so quiet? She had never given the boy much thought until today. She quickly shrugged it off.

Looking up, she noticed Anika poking at Duo’s bookbag. "What’s in the bag? It’s not a school day," she said as she studied it curiously.

"Uh, just some stuff a friend gave me," he said looking her straight in the eye.

"Oh, like what?" Anika pressed.

Cyanea rolled her eyes, "Anika, shut up. So what are you doing today?" she asked the boys.

"We have plans," Trowa said, surprising her.

"Oh, whatcha doing?" Anika asked.

The three boys exchanged glances and Duo spoke up. "Uh, boys day out!"

"Oh…okay, well we’ll see ya around then," Cyanea said as the three of them quickly made an exit.

"By the way!" Duo yelled after them, causing the girls to turn around. "You really sing good!"

Cyanea blushed and turned her back to him, "Thanks, see ya!" She quickly walked out and the other two girls followed laughing at her.

"Good bye," he whispered sort of sadly. Turning to Quatre and Trowa he said, "I have a bad feeling about tonight."

***  Chapter 11

The Arabian pilot saw the OZ base in the light of the moon grow in size as the three Gundams approached it. Their job was pretty simple, create a distraction so Duo and Heero could sneak in during the confusion. Then, they were to destroy the base when the two got out. His intercom blared to life. "We’re in position, start the attack," Heero’s monotone said.

He heard Trowa and Wufei acknowledge and he turned his Gundam to begin the attack. As they fired on the base, the guards scrambled to their mobile suits and rushed to defend their headquarters. A suit came close to him and he attacked with his curved swords, slicing the poor soul’s mobile suit in half.

"Sorry," he muttered under his breath as he continued to slaughter the enemy.

As he turned Sandrock to attack another, he noticed the figures of two boys running across the open area between the fence and the doors. One of them was wearing all black, his braid waving behind him, while the other was wearing green and black. Smiling slightly, Quatre turned his attention back to the battle.

Everything was going well, half of the suits were down and were no match for the gundanium suits. Suddenly, a new swarm of mobile suits appeared from on e of the large hangars in the base. All three pilots were surrounded. Quatre noticed Trowa take immediate action, shooting three of the suits before they reached him. Felling the frame of his Gundam shudder from a hard impact, the Arabian boy turned his attention back to his own battle.

Events had definitely taken a turn for the worse. Trowa’s face showed up on one of the screens, "Quatre, watch out!"

The warning was too late as three mobile suits charged from behind, knocking Sandrock over. Quatre flew forward with the impact and slammed his head against on e of the control panels. He tried to sit back up but was overcome with a wave of dizziness. He heard some voices but couldn’t focus on them. "Montana," he sighed before passing out.

***  Heero typed quickly, trying to break the password to the files they needed. This was proving harder then getting into the building had been. No one had noticed the two of them as they quickly slipped into a side door and made their way to the main computer system. If things kept going as well as they are, he figured Duo would have been more helpful outside in his Gundam. Most likely cheerfully blowing up enemy suits. Heero thought before refocusing his attention back to the task at hand.

Duo spoke up distracting him, "Oi, Heero! Someone’s coming, hurry up man!"

Heero growled in frustration then allowed himself a smirk as the password blinked its acceptance. "I still need a few minutes," he said dangerously as he shoved a disk into the hard drive. "Hold them off."

Duo grinned maniacally as he drew his gun and pointed it at the door. "The God of Death is back again!" he said.

Heero noted the black priest outfit the boy wore, and immediately saw the irony of his comment. Heero looked at him warily and wondered if he really was the God of Death. Then the door slowly opened and Duo shot the young uniformed man who had probably come to investigate the voices coming from the room. The bullet hit him in the head, square between the eyes. Good thing Duo got those silencers for the guns when he got the ammo. Heero thought as he noticed the screen tell him the files were done downloading.

"Mission complete," he muttered as he retrieved the disk from the computer and pocketed it somewhere in his spandex shorts. He noticed the strange look from Duo as he did this, but shrugged it off. "Let’s get out of here so the others can blow this place."
Duo nodded enthusiastically, "Another mission finished." He turned and followed his friend out the door and quickly down the hall.

Rushing through the hangar door that led to the outside, they managed to get away with only running into a few guards. These unfortunate people were now lying in a pool of their own blood. The Japanese soldier picked up his comlink and told the other to start destroying the base. Trowa replied, "We’re on it. Quatre’s down though, but we have everything under control."

With that, Heero put away the comlink and finished exiting the building with Duo right behind him. Then they saw them, about 30 guards all waiting for them. Giving each other a frantic glance, they sprayed the men with bullets, causing them to dive for cover. Taking off at a dead run, Heero just barely cleared the blast radius as the building exploded. Looking at Duo, he found that the other boy had not been so lucky.

He lay on the ground surrounded by his own blood and clutching a wound in his arm, caused by debris from the explosion. Cursing, he helped the half-conscious boy up from the ground. "Wow, that was awesome, man," the injured boy said before stumbling away from the burning building with the support of his friend.

***  The three boys stared at the boring blue wallpaper that adorned part of the hospital waiting room’s walls. They were worried about Quatre, when they had pulled him from his Gundam, the boy’s face and clothes had been covered in blood gushing from a deep wound on his forehead. Duo wasn’t in as bad of a condition, although he had lost a fair amount of blood, they figured he would only need a few stitches.

A doctor entered the waiting room and the three boys jumped up to find out what they could about their friends. The doctor looked at them. "Are you the friends of Duo Maxwell and Quatre Winner?"

They nodded.

"Do you know of an adult I can contact for these boys?" the doctor asked.

Trowa and Heero exchanged glances as Wufei continued to stand stoically behind them. Looking at the doctor, Heero said, "Is it necessary."

"I believe so, we need to keep Mr. Winner for a few days but Mr. Maxwell can go home. We need an adult to release him to and sign the papers for Mr. Winner."

Heero nodded, "The dean at Streame High School," was all he said.

"Thank you," the doctor said and turned to leave.

"Wait," Trowa spoke up. "Can you tell us what condition our friends are in?"

Sighing, the doctor turned back towards the boys, "Mr. Maxwell just needed some stitches and treatment for his burns. However, Mr. Winner lost a lot of blood, we’ll be giving him an IV for the next couple of days to get his count up again."

The three nodded their thanks and expected the doctor to leave them, they weren’t so lucky. "By the way," he said. "What happened to those boys?"

The three exchanged looks and Heero answered. "We were attacked, but we didn’t see who it was."

The doctor nodded, "We should call the police to make a report."

"That isn’t necessary," Heero said. "Our other friend went down to the station to do that for us."

The physician raised an eyebrow at them, "Very well, I will go contact your school dean." With that he turned to leave the three boys.

***  The phone was ringing, Mr. Runner woke from a very good dream about the most recent playboy’s centerfold, and grabbed it. "What," he growled, angry for being driven awake from one of the best dreams ever.

"This is Mercy Hospital," the voice on the other side said. "I’m Doctor Tazzlehoffin and I’m calling to inform you that two of your students have been hospitalized. We need you to come down to sign some papers and pick one of the boys up."

This quickly woke the dean up and he started to ask questions, "What two students," he growled.

"A Mr. Duo Maxell and Mr. Quatre Winner."

"Maxwell," he said as his anger grew. I knew that boy was up to no good. "I’ll be right there."

He jumped out of bed, got dressed and rushed to the hospital.

Entering the Emergency Ward, he approached the front desk and demanded to see Doctor Tazzlehoffin at once. The nurse pointed him to the waiting room. "He’ll be with you in a moment," she said as she paged him over the intercom.

He went into the room to find none other than the other three followers of the troublemaker Duo Maxwell sitting patiently and waiting. Glaring at them angrily, he spoke up, "There had better be one good explanation for this. And I want to hear it NOW!!!"

The three just stared at the irate dean and were quickly saved by the doctor. "from what I hear, Mr. Runner, it was a gang attack. Although, I am puzzled as to how Mr. Maxwell got the burns."

The dean’s eyebrows rose into his hairline, which was pretty far. "B…Burns!" he asked.

The doctor and dean turned to the three Gundam pilots for an explanation. Trowa looked at them dead in the eye and said with no expression, "They had lighters."

"Well, what were they trying to do?" the dean asked.

"Burn his hair," Wufei said with a smirk.

The dean laughed before he could catch himself, "Good, it’s about time someone did something about that hair of his."

The doctor looked at him in shock. "We will be releasing Mr. Maxwell if you care to sign some papers for us."

"Release him, why? You can keep him here as long as you like. But what of Mr. Winner?" the dean asked.

"He will be staying a night or two, but Mr. Maxwell isn’t bad enough to stay here."

"Very well, where is the boy," he asked. Just then Duo stumbled out of the double doors and behind the doctor.

"Oi, man. When can I go. I’ve been sitting back there for over an hour!"

That boy looks like he’s been to hell and back, he shouldn’t be able to walk! The dean thought as he studied the extent of Duo’s injuries. When Duo saw the dean, he shrunk back a little afraid of what would undoubtedly come next. "Maxwell, I don’t know exactly what happened, but you’d better have one good reason for being out past curfew." Just because the boy looked pitiful at the moment didn’t mean he was going to be any easier on the troublemaker.

"Well, we would have been back in time, if we hadn’t been attacked," Heero said in a reasoning voice.

"Yet it took you four hours to finally get to a hospital?’ the dean asked unbelieving.

"It’s a little hard when you have two unconscious friends and have to walk," Trowa said.

Giving a sigh of defeat the dean turned to the doctor. "Give me the papers so we can get out of here."

"While you’re doing that, can we go see Quatre?" duo asked, then shrank back at the glare from the dean.

The doctor nodded, "He’s in a coma, so promise you won’t be too noisy. We have high hopes for him. He’s a strong boy, so he should wake up soon. He’s in room 378."

Without a word of thanks, the four boys headed in that direction.