Wow! I can't believe it! This story has more reviews than my first one – which is called "Evil Quatre" by the way. (Shameless plugging) I'm glad people are beginning to question why the entity is attacking the remaining GW-boys. Pay close attention or the end will go right over your heads.

4. Playful Terror

          Even with the outrageous events that had happened, the four pilots refused to admit that something other worldly was going on. Quatre came closest to admitting that there was definitely something amiss, but he didn't want to be viewed as weak – or crazy, as the events were leading them to believe they were becoming. But even that theory was being frowned upon. So with little – if any – peace of mind, they retreated to their soft, plush beds to escape into soothing dreams. Heero lay gently snoring on his bed, buried under a pile of blankets to ward off the chilly storm air. He was even wearing pajama pants and a matching, buttoned up, long-sleeved shirt, it was so cold. He stirred slightly at the sound of his name being called. He blinked groggily when he was called again.

          "Shut up…" he mumbled sleepily. The sound of pleased giggling drifted into his ears. This caused him to snap open his eyes. He listened attentively to his surroundings. He heard feet falling softly on the carpet. In a split second Heero was sitting up with his gun arm outstretched. The figure moved closer to him and lightly touched his hand. Heero's gun fell from his grip as his hand went numb. He was going to pick it up with his other hand but the transparent being took his chin in its hand, numbing his whole torso. The figure pushed him back down onto the bed. It ran a freezing hand through his hair. This numbed the remainder of Heero's body, and the blankets weren't helping. The creature leaned forward and took in Heero's scent.

          "Heero…" it sighed contentedly. Heero stared hard at the figure, trying to make out some sort of face or anything that might reveal its identity, but he could barely even see the shape of it. It was as if it was there, but it wasn't there at the same time.

          "You're the Perfect Soldier, are you not?" the creature continued, its tone of voice denying the presence of a stable mind. "And…you've had a lot of torture-resisting training, haven't you? I don't think I've ever heard you cry out in pain…" Heero watched as the creature pulled a gleaming knife from the shadowed recesses of its body. It slid its fingers along the blade as if to test its sharpness. "I wonder, Heero. Oh how the question doth nag at my mind… could I? Would I? Should I try to make you cry out in pain? How much of your body would I have to destroy to make you scream? Because I DO want to hear you scream…let's just find out the answer to my question." The figure lowered the knife to Heero's chest then in one clean motion, sliced the buttons right off of his shirt. Heero couldn't even tilt his head down to see what the creature was doing. But he could feel the tip of the knife slicing through his abdomen. He would have winced slightly, but his entire face had gone numb. The knife cut deeper into his flesh.

          "Can you feel it, Heero? Or is your body too numb? Maybe you should feel what I felt. Yes…why don't you feel the pain that I had to feel when you let him kill me?" The figure picked Heero's gun off the floor and dangled it above his head. "Go on. Take it. Do what you should've done when you let me die." Heero reached for the gun hesitantly, the feeling having returned to his body. Still staring at the ceiling, he placed the barrel of the gun on the side of his head.

          "I can't…" he murmured.

          "Yes you can. You should, too. You don't deserve to live after what you let him do to me. You could have saved me. But you didn't."

          "I don't deserve to live…"

          "That's right. You shouldn't have hesitated."

          "I shouldn't have hesitated…"

          "You let him kill me."

          "I let him kill you…"

          "It's your fault I died."

          "It's my fault you died…"

          "Now you have to die."

          "I have to die…gomen nasai, Shinigami…" Heero was just about to pull the trigger when the gun was snatched from his hand. Heero blinked and shook his head to clear his mind. He sat up to see Wufei glaring at him and Trowa and Quatre behind him.

          "See, I told you." Quatre said, with a nod to emphasize whatever point he had made.

          "What's happening?" Heero demanded, still trying to clear his mind.

          "Someone or something is trying to get us to kill ourselves." Wufei informed him. "I alone have not been affected."

          "Oh please, you almost beheaded yourself with your own sword." Quatre stated sounding rather annoyed.

          "Yes, but I was able to stop myself. I'm the one that stopped all of you." Heero glanced at Quatre, wondering what his method of suicide was going to be. Quatre seemed to sense Heero's question.

          "I was…going to jump…off of the balcony." he admitted.

          "The one on the fourth floor." Wufei added. Heero then turned his gaze to Trowa. Trowa only returned a very silent and very stern stare.

          "He was going to shoot himself, like you." Quatre supplied.

          "With his Gundam. While he was inside of it." Trowa glared at Wufei.

          "How did you stop that?"

          "Gawd, I had to use my Gundam. I'm just glad you were going for something simple, though I thought you'd be strong enough to break free yourself."

          "But you were wrong." Quatre sniffed. 'So that was the point he had made.' Heero thought. Then Heero remembered how the figure had been cutting into his stomach. He looked down at his midsection and found it covered in blood. This surprised him greatly – he had thought that the knife wasn't real. He leaned a bit to the side and saw the blood-stained knife under the folds of his blankets. 'How did that get in here?' he wondered. He squinted and stared carefully at the designs that had been carved into his chest. They were letters…and one number, it appeared. They spelled out the same message that Quatre had been scraping into the wall with his finger – "4-get". All four of the boys spoke the question in unison.

          "Forget what?"

***

          Fearing another attempt at suicide, Heero, Wufei, Quatre and Trowa congregated in the dining room. They each shared their own strange experience and discussed possible courses of action.

          "There's no reason to deny it anymore." Quatre was saying. "We all know who is doing this to us. The question is, why?"

          "It can't be Maxwell. He's dead. We all know that, too." Wufei argued.

          "It's his ghost." Trowa mumbled, stating what had become very obvious.

          "There're no such things as ghosts. And even if he was a ghost, why would he be haunting us? After all, it was Zechs who killed him."

          "That's what I was saying - ." Quatre was interrupted by soft chuckling coming from his right. He glanced in the direction of the sound but saw only Heero and he knew that Heero hadn't laughed. "So how do you explain that, Wufei?" he continued. Wufei opened his mouth to speak and was cut off by another bout of laughing, this time louder and stronger. He saw Heero cover his mouth out of the corner of his eye.

          "What's wrong with you, Yui?" he asked. Heero tried to curse in Japanese only to be drawn into yet another giggle fit.

          "Heero, are you - ." Quatre began. A huge belch sounded from within his chest. "Oh my. E-excuse me!" he apologized, blushing.

          "What's happening here?!" Wufei demanded. Suddenly Trowa launched into a long run-on sentence.

          "It's very plain that they're being controlled by Duo's ghost and I think that I am too because you know I don't usually talk this much and Heero doesn't laugh and I have to say that I've never heard Quatre burp so loudly in my entire life and I hope that I can stop this sentence soon because I'm running out of air and - ." He continued as Heero doubled over in his laughter, pounding furiously on the table. Quatre began burping the alphabet causing Heero to laugh even harder.

          "Would you all stop this, please? Come on, we've got to regain control - ." Wufei smacked his forehead as he realized that he too was being controlled by Duo's ghost. Music mysteriously started to blast through the speakers in the mansion.

          "OH, DO A LITTLE DANCE! MAKE A LITTLE NOISE! GET DOWN TO-NIGHT! UH HUH! GET DOWN TO-NIGHT!" All four of the boys hopped out of their chairs and began dancing around the table.

          "We…have to…get out…" Heero wheezed. They danced toward the front door and tried to open it. It wouldn't open. Heero and Trowa were getting dizzy from lack of oxygen and Quatre was having unbearable gas pains. Wufei turned his head to the ceiling and yelled,

          "Duo Maxwell, you get down here this instant!" 'Gawd, I sound like a mother.' he thought to himself. Insane, high-octave giggling echoed through the house. A small tornado formed in the middle of the boys. It shrank until it disappeared, leaving behind a young boy about the age of fifteen with a long chestnut colored braid, wearing all black and a matching baseball cap on his head. He was grinning evilly with his hands on his hips.

          "Did you miss me?" the apparition that was Duo asked.

          "Duo, please stop this. I believe you now. We're all very sorry." Wufei pleaded, disgusted with the words escaping his mouth.

          "Yeah, yeah, I'm real sorry for you. There's nothing I can do."

          "Well you can at least stop this, can't you?" Wufei asked, gesturing towards the incapacitated pilots on the floor.

          "I can stop it temporarily." Duo answered. He waved a hand in the direction of the three other pilots on the floor. Instantly, they returned to normal. Wufei did too and he instinctively drew his katana and lunged at Duo for making him sound like a sissy. Duo only laughed as Wufei passed through him and fell to the floor.

          "Why are you doing this to us?" Quatre asked, hurt that his friend would want them to go through so much.

          "You're doing this to yourselves." Duo replied matter-of-factly. Quatre shook his head.

          "I don't understand." he said.

          "Neither do I. I don't see why you guys just can't forget."

          "Forget WHAT?!" Everyone exclaimed.

          "Just try to forget, or we'll all be stuck here forever."

          "FORGET WHAT!?!" But they never got an answer because Duo disappeared again.

          "I just don't understand. What is it that we're supposed to forget?" Quatre wondered aloud. There was no response. He glanced around himself. He was alone. 'Where'd everyone go?' A chill ran down Quatre's spine as he heard that same crazed laughter echo through the halls of his mansion. A cold voice whispered darkly into the depths of his mind.

          "They've gone to Hell. Just – like – you."

*I dunno about that chapter. It was the longest so far, but I think it was pretty weak. Hmm…I promise the next few chapters will have more action. I just keep getting some sort of writer's block. But don't worry, it's a mild case – I should be able to get over it. 'Oh God, no body's gonna keep reading this crap…'*