Hello! First fanfic in this fandom, after lurking for several years. I don't have a beta so all mistakes and senselessness are mine. This was inspired by the game my class played while my teacher was out, and it gives me a chance to show off my random trivia knowledge. :)
WARNING: This does contain Mello and his temper/vocabulary. I'm keeping the rating at T for the moment, mainly because I'd heard quite a bit worse by the time I was thirteen. If cursing isn't really your thing, well, I did warn you. Also when people see the 'M' they think lemon, which this contains nothing even close to.
After that very long winded warning; I own nothing.
Wammy's Orphanage was, at its most basic, a little genius factory. All of the children that made their homes within its walls were fighting over one title: L. But at another level it was also an orphanage. The children, genii though they might be, were still expected to grow up to (semi-) functioning adults. They needed proper childhood things, according to a certain Mr. Wammy, and these included games. Since the initial purpose of detective production could not be forgotten, and many of these children would have no idea what to do with a football if it managed to hit them over their large heads, the games chosen had to be vaguely intellectual in origin. So trained to compete, the orphans wouldn't be interested unless it had at least a taste of rivalry.
Thus, the weekly game of "Guess" was born. It lasted four hours, a more complex variant of the children's game "guess what's on my head?", with each child writing the most obscure bit of trivia they could manage and sticking it on another's forehead. The four hours were spent going around the circle as they attempted to deduce what was written on the card. Questions had to be yes or no, and lying was allowed. The game was continuous until the time was up; the victor had the most cards.
Wammy stood in the very corner of the room, smiling benignly, next to the laptop. The screen was dark at the moment; L was still watching. He rarely watched these sorts of things, but Wammy was quite insistent he keep up with his successors' doings.
Roger had managed to drag thirty children into the room with all the ease of herding cats. With a great deal of shouting they had been forced to sit in some sort of circle, the kind that made the more OCD among them weep at its lopsided bulges. With a great deal more shouting everyone had been given a slip of paper and a pencil.
"Allowed languages?" Peak, a tiny girl wearing dozens of brightly colored ribbons, asked.
"Not German!" Apparently that had been allowed last time. According to Roger's reports Mello had terrorized the entire group by using only obscure German swear words.
"Finnish!"
"Polish! Polish!"
"Afrikaans!
"We've predetermined the languages this time," Roger cut over the shouting, "They will be English, Latin, and Japanese. All topics are acceptable, math equations are not unless they are a namable formula. Responses must be kept to under five words in length." That had been another attempt by Mello; he tried to copy the entire first chapter of Anna Karenina (in Russian) onto the card and have them guess all of it. The only unspoken rule was that the information had to be of some value: It couldn't be a list of names out of a phonebook.
It was quiet for only a few moments as everyone scribbled down a word or five and stuck it to their neighbor's forehead. They sat according to rank, with the unfortunate boy in last place being the recipient of Near's card.
"First rank guesses first." Near's forehead bore the sign with "DICK" written in large letters in Mello's handwriting.
"Am I a colloquial term for male genitalia?" Near ask in a monotone.
"Dammit!"
"You shouldn't have been so predictable." Matt's DS had been taken away during the game due to its reflective screen; he was doing his best to look as bored as humanly possible.
"You're one to talk about being predictable. Let me guess, am I a video game character?" Half under his bangs, Mello's card read "Princess Peach".
"Yup."
"Come on Mattie! You know I don't know shit about video games."
"Yup."
"Fuck you."
"Am I an abacus?" Linda had stuck "International Gothic" half over the redhead's left eye.
"No." The entire group chorused.
"Am I alive?" "Pascal's wager" had been pressed to the high plane under Linda's hairline.
"No."
It went around and around, with Near guessing his correctly on his turn. Anyone was now open to put a card there; one of the lower ranked boys gave him "Magne Aarøen". Except for the occasional bickering the questions went quickly, with no one wanting to slow the game down and risk missing a chance to get a card. By the fifteenth or sixteenth turn the questions were becoming more specific.
"Am I a psychological condition?"
"Am I a middle eastern archaeological site?"
"Was I published before 1952?"
Near also was the current victor with five cards, one with the Norwegian politician, the others containing more swear words courtesy of Mello. Mello was pushing his rather extensive vocabulary on the subject to new heights. By this point it was also very clear Matt was just working his way through the dictionary, and that Mello knew next to nothing about video games.
"Am I that Zelda bitch?"
"Nope."
"C'mon! That's the one you left on my bed so often I threw it out the window. It's the only one I know!"
"Yup."
"You're an ass."
"You threw my stuff out of the window."
"Ass."
Ten turns later some of the lower ranked children were finally getting cards.
"Am I Benoit Mandelbrot?"
"Am I the Ara Pacis?"
"Am I Gate Control Theory of Pain?" Mello had finally decided to turn his extensive vocabulary and knowledge on these new victors instead. The most often question was now, "Am I impolite to say in public?" Near had gained another card, this one of the Palace at Fishbourne, and was steadily going through gaining The Pillars of the Earth.
Linda had managed to make it through Pascal's wager and was now onto "考慮 kooryo-consideration". Matt was still guessing from somewhere in the A's at "alimony".
To most people's surprise he was the one to stand when Near needed a new card. He stuck the card to Near's forehead and sat down, bored expression never leaving.
Okazaki Yumemi 岡崎夢美
"Am I that tomb raider chick? The one with the boobs?"
"Laura Croft? Nope."
"Fucking hell, Matt."
"I was playing it all last night if you were paying attention."
"I don't pay attention to your ranting!"
"I know." Mello continued to swear silently as the questions continued.
"Am I calcium phosphate?"
"Am I an aliquantum?"
"Am I the Treaty of Verdun?"
"Am I from a game released after 1978?" Near asked.
"Yup."
The remaining two hours of the game passed with little fanfare. At the three hour mark the fifteenth ranked girl had a minor mental breakdown and had to be excused, and the three way tie for second place resulted in much glaring and hissing of insults. Only three students had yet to gain one card—the poor last placed boy was down to guessing letters to figure out Near's, Matt had actually made it to the letter "B", and Mello was steadily turning purple as he wracked his brains for any semblance of video game knowledge.
Near had effectively been stopped as well. He had gotten to the knowledge it was a female boss character from a 1997 Japanese video game, but past that he was reduced to Mello's state. He didn't seem to mind, which just served to anger Mello further. Matt could be seen smirking whenever he thought they weren't looking.
"Time's up!" Roger called, cutting off a girl's question. "Near in first at seven cards; Turn at second with five; Peak and Linda tie for third with four cards." Peak threw her cards down in anger, glaring at the other girl across the circle.
"One more turn and I would have had you!" She shrieked and stormed out. The other sore losers, there were great numbers of them, tossed their own cards down and left after her. Near pulled the card off his forehead and quickly read it.
"What game is this from?" He asked, holding it out to Matt.
"She's a boss from Touhou."
"Thank you." Near left at the tail end of the procession of children. Matt gave a soft huff and peeled the card off his goggles.
"That takes out Touhou. He'll have the whole list memorized for next time."
"You don't have to be the one to stump the sheep. I had a great one that totally would have stopped him!" Mello finally remembered who else Matt had stumped. The purple color that had been steadily draining from him face returned full force as he whipped off the piece of paper.
"You piece of SHIT! What the fuck is this? Who in the crap is Princess Peach?! MATT!" Matt took off running, Mello close behind, still howling. Roger was forced to run after them in hopes of preventing the inevitable fistfight. Wammy remained seated in the corner next to the laptop, the faint smile never leaving.
"So, L, what have you learned about your successors?" The screen blinked to the distinctive gothic L, but the detective's words went straight to Wammy's earpiece.
"Well, according to the hall cameras Mello appears to have caught Matt." Even Wammy didn't know the full extent of L's camera network, but it was apparently a game among the students to find their blind spots.
"Do I need to go assist Roger?"
"No. Matt appears able to hold his own and Mello isn't fighting full strength." Wammy shook his head at the bits of noise drifting through the open door.
"All of them are remarkable childish, especially the top three, and not particularly observant. Near was aware of my surveillance, I'm ninety percent sure Matt was as well, but Mello and the rest were not. Mello should have been able to but was too caught up in beating Near to think about anything else. He went for insults without realizing how predictable that would be, and he let his emotions show enough to let Near read him. Near chose to analyze those giving him the cards and was able to work through the puzzles much faster. He also used weaknesses to his advantage; giving the name of a fallen country to someone weak in both geography and history almost insured they would be unable to guess. He gave up much too quickly though when presented with an actual challenge. Matt played on his own strength and Near refused to resort to guessing letters.
"If Matt knew I was watching he wanted to send me a message. He could compete—even if he can't beat them all the time he knew things that could stump both Mello and Near—but he refuses to be competition. He stopped Mello early due to a personal spat, but only took out Near once Near was assured victory to prove his point. He does not want to be L."
"It's not fair to leave the title dangling over them. You must decide soon."
"I have time," Wammy could hear a loud tea slurp through the earpiece and winced, "Besides, at this point I am not willing to leave the name L to any of them."
"L…"
"You may wish to go and assist Roger now. Matt and Mello appear to have set aside their differences in order to attack Near."
"We will speak of this when I return." The screen immediately went dark.
Wammy sighed and went to go pull the children off of each other. He found it difficult to ignore the silence from the earpiece.
Sometimes he wasn't sure who was more childlike; the actual children or the man they were training to replace.
So... all trivia taken from the darker reaches of my mind and "fact checked" via Wikipedia. Not the most reliable methods, but feel free to Google if you actually care what all of this is. And if you also care where this fits in with the timeline, I'd place it at early 2003. Light picks up the Death Note in late 2003, making Matt, Mello and Near around 12-13 years of age. More reasons for me to leave this at T.
Before anyone jumps down my throat for my characterization, specifically Near's; I tried. I didn't want it to seem like L was only picking out everyone else's faults, but it's very hard to show "cheats" and "can't function in society AT ALL" in a children's game. So I just took his lack of initiative and ran with it.
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