Teru Mikami had been nervous the entire day. Not about L's plan; he did not doubt the genius's intelligence when it came to such matters. Rather, he was worried that L would work too well.

Before Mikami had allied himself with L, he had been sure that he had the upper hand. He had been Light's most devoted follower (read: stalker) for years now, and probably knew more about his god's life than Light himself. He knew that L would be clever, but he had not expected the teen to have his own minions for Kami's sake.

Mikami's train of thought wavered for a moment as he lapsed into a brief daydream about being Light's minion. Maybe he could to lick Light's shoes clean, or wash his underwear. Perhaps he could even offer himself as a portable tissue...

But back to the issue at hand.

L was planning far more quickly than Mikami could have anticipated, and the current plan looked deceivingly simple. He couldn't help but feel that he was being left out, and not just because L hadn't once asked his opinion during the entire Wammy's meeting.

But perhaps worse than any of that was the fact that L had forbidden him from watching Light play tennis today. They had to remain "inconspicuous," he had said. Mikami didn't believe that for an instant. After all, he had secretly watched almost every one of Light's tennis matches. Wouldn't it be more suspicious if he suddenly didn't? Light was probably smart enough to have realized his presence by now. Maybe he actually enjoyed having Mikami there.

Besides, the future prosecutor certainly wasn't going to miss a chance to see Light all sweaty and in shorts.

So like he always did, Mikami Teru snuck into the bushes near the tennis court, got out his binoculars, and set to watching the match.

The air was suffocating the young redhead as he tried desperately to air out his long-sleeved shirt. Why didn't locker rooms have air conditioning? You'd think it would be especially important with all the people hot and sweaty from their awful sports. Matt personally thought it would be simpler to just stay inside all day. In emergencies, Wii Fitness and Dance Dance Revolution would suffice.

Nevertheless, the gamer persevered, trying to imagine he was in a video game, surrounded by lava, and he had to get to a treasure chest, which in this case was Light's locker, #5472. Another thing that didn't make sense: there were not 5472 lockers.

Eventually braving the perilous lava realm, Matt arrived at Light's locker. Matt had asked that weird guy, Mikami, in computer class today what Light's gym locker combination was, and surprisingly enough, he had it memorized. What. A. Freak.

46-24-29. Sure enough, the lock clicked open, and Matt immediately searched for a cell phone. He quickly found it, and immediately went to the ringtone section.

Hmmm. Embarrassing and gay sounding songs... Matt smiled. He had the perfect idea. Many of the girls he knew would be embarrassed to have it on their phone. He then programmed in the number of one of his anonymously purchased phones. 588-7635. Why did Matt have anonymously purchased phones, you ask? Well, that was classified.

There. Simple. He closed the locker door, ready to leave...

"Hehehe. That dork Hatari just doesn't know when to give up."

Upon hearing voices, Matt immediately hid beneath a bench. It wasn't an exaggeration to say it was extremely suspicious for him to be anywhere near the gym.

"Yeah. You think he's gonna rat us out to a teacher?"

"Pfft. Not unless he wants to get beat up again."

At this point Matt was able to place the voices as Rod Ross and Jack Neylon, two of the school's most notorious bullies. Not good. If found, they'd beat him up immediately on grounds of being a geek, and rumors (albeit true rumors) that he was gay. Although they were thoroughly afraid of Mello, Matt was completely fair game.

"It's surprising that some guys still don't pay their 'protection taxes'. You'd really think they'd know better."

Matt shuddered as they mentioned the topic. 'Protection taxes' had been invented by Rod's not-quite-a-gang to routinely get money out of 'dorks' as payment for not getting beaten up. Matt himself had suffered them for a brief period of time, before causing total electrical failure in Rod's house. This meant that although he had made them stop routinely bullying him, he had also made them hate him intensely. This was definitely not a good situation to be in...

Plomp!

If as he suspected, that was the sound of one of them sitting on the very bench he was hiding under, it was an even worse situation. Matt didn't need L to know that he had a low probability of getting out of this undetected. So Matt did the only thing he could. He got out his iTouch and turned on a sound grenade app.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

"Oh, God, what is that awful sound?"

"I dunno, let's just get out of here!"

Matt heard them run out of the locker room, and several seconds later, he turned the app off, then snuck back into the main hallway. Ah, the glory of technology.

Stage 1 complete, he only had to wait for the cue to call Light's phone.

Why did Near have to be so good at everything he did? Why? Well, Mello could tell you exactly why. It was because he was Near.

It was because he was Near that given only one evening to make a catapult capable of launching mud, Near would not only complete the task, but he would make it so his catapult could win in pretty much any trajectory competition a high school could offer. He would also add in plenty of handy features.

Mello, anticipating that he would need to do more than just operate simple machinery, had brought along a bucket of high quality mud. But Near taunted him yet again by designing his catapult to suck up dirt from the very ground it was placed upon, and by simply adding water, produce mud balls of the optimum flying and splattering abilities.

Naturally, Mello was fuming when the sheep had produced his magnificent invention. Even in a simple task like this, Near just had to completely outshine him in L's eyes. But Mello had no choice but to take the device, wheel it over to the location of the party (yes, Near had put wheels on it), and carefully position it out of sight, but with a direct line of sight to the entrance.

The blond sat down, still fuming, and waited for the guests to arrive. Somehow, he had to outshine the little albino. Somehow, he had to impress L more. But what could he do? In what area was he superior to Near?

Then Mello realized it. He could improvise. The sheep had to have everything planned out, but Mello could make split-second decisions. So he made one then.

The leather-clad teen reached into his backpack, pulled out a full pack of bubblegum, and stuck all ten pieces in his mouth. The plan was simple; he would get the gum wad nice and soft, then when the target arrived, fire it before the mud. It was riskier, sure. The gum might not stick. But if it did, Misa would be forced to cut off anything the gum touched. It would completely ruin her hair.

Soon enough, Mello saw Misa walk up the front driveway. He plucked the gum from his mouth, readied it to fire, and at optimum range, flung it at the young model.

"Eeewww!" she screeched, almost as if she had stepped on a piece of cake. Her hand flew to her head, trying to get the pink substance out of her hair, but only making it worse. Meanwhile, Mello was reloading with the planned mud.

Whoooosh!

The brown mixture of dirt and water, annoyingly arranged by Near in just the right portions, soared though the air, hitting her in the face.

"Ahhhh!"

Although Misa herself was temporarily blinded by mud, some of her friends were looking towards where the projectiles had come from, albeit at a distance. After all, mud splattered.

Mello knew he should really be leaving, but he couldn't resist firing one more shot at the top of her head, to cover what the gum had missed.

Unfortunately, he was already moving the catapult back at that point, and shot was slightly off. Instead of hitting its intended target, the missile veered to the left, hitting... Halle Lidner.

"Oops," Mello said to himself. As far as the popular students went, he actually kind of liked Halle. More importantly, she kept him up to date on the latest rumors and gossip, and it would be a great blow to him if his primary information source decided to stop informing him. Now, all the more reason to get out undetected.

Mello briefly debated internally about whether or not to leave the catapult. It could roll fairly quickly, but it definitely slowed him down, and some people were starting to come in his direction.

But then again, his fingerprints were all over it, and anyone who even dabbled in investigational skills could pin the attack on him. Plus, even it was made by Near, it was a pretty nice piece of equipment, and Mello liked the thought of being able to use it in future endeavors. Decisions, decisions...

In the end, Mello decided to just take the catapult with him. He turned the corner around a house just in time to avoid being seen. At this point, people probably wouldn't investigate too much further, and his escape would be simple. He would be out of sight for good.

Then he felt a cloth covering his nose and mouth. He was no stranger to fighting, and immediately tried to disable his attacker, but the whole escape process meant that he was breathing heavily, and the cloth effectively cut off his supply of oxygen.

Mello kept on struggling until he fell unconscious. A person whose face was obscured by shadows slowly dragged him into the back door of the nearby building, leaving Near's catapult abandoned behind him.

Author's Note: Again, thanks to the amazing Zena Silverwing for betaing. In case anyone was wondering, the numbers in this fic do have special meanings. Let's see, Light's locker is 5472, his combination is 46-24-29, and Matt's phone number is 588-7635. I'll send a virtual cookie to anyone who can figure one or more of them out. ;)