With some difficulty she opened her eyes, her eyelids feeling heavy and tired. Something restrained her chest, making it even more difficult for her to breathe. She felt similar bounds on her wrists and ankles.

The room she was in was shadowy, the lights in every corner of the room being dimmed to near darkness. The floor was thinly carpeted and she saw the wall out of a corner of her eye, was made of stone.

In an attempt to raise her head, dull pain erupted in the base of her neck and her head fell backward.

"Trin? Are you awake?"

Her head rolled to the right as she looked for the source of the voice. About two meters away was a steel chair, nailed to the floor. As she squinted her eyes against the blurriness, she made out Acire's face and the restrains on her wrists and ankles. Acire however, did not have any other bounds.

"Yeah" Trin finally forced out. Her throat was dry and scratchy. "Where are we?"

"I don't know" her friend responded. By her voice Trin could tell, she was near hysteria.

"How'd we get there?" Despite her condition Trin was attempting to think clearly. She knew she had to stay rational, because Acire was useless in intense situations such as this.

"I, I followed you into the woods and," she choked back a dry sob "and then someone knocked me out. When I woke up I was in this room. At first I thought, oh god, I thought they killed you"

"Calm down. They want us alive" the brunette croaked.

Suddenly the door to the room swung open with a bang and the lights brightened slightly. Several pairs of feet entered the room and stopped before them. Someone's gloved hand took Trin by the chin and lifted her head into an upright position. Through her blurry vision, she saw a silhouette in front of her. A man; judging by the muscular complexion.

"Ah yes, you're awake" he spoke. His voice sounded dull and metallic to her. She groaned as another hand pulled down her eyelids one by one and someone inspected her eyeballs.

"Don't worry you'll feel better soon" the same person spoke. She felt a cold prick of a needle in her upper arm and then the footsteps retreated back out the door and the lights dimmed to full darkness. Trin's eyes fell closed once again and she slipped into the obscurity.

* * *

"Heero, calm down!" Quatre cried in alarm as Heero tore apart the living room.

The crash of a lamp breaking against the wall dangerously near his head, answered him. The house looked like there had been a battle there. Heero flew into rage when the girls were found missing with no traces of them anywhere on the island. He silently blamed himself for not watching them close enough, and he was furious. It meant he had failed in completing the mission. He had let his guard down, and it had cost him the mission, just like he knew it would.

"Yuy!" Wufei cried angrily as he grabbed Heero's arm. Heero glared at him angrily and in a flash his fist connected with Wufei's face.

Before anything else could happen, Duo lunged in between the two.

"Stop it, damn it!" he cried "Our main objective is to find them as soon as possible and we'll never be able to do that if we turn on each other!"

Heero glared at him, then straightened after a moment.

"Quatre, Trowa, look over the beach again. Duo and Wufei, take the north and the west part of the forest and I will take the south and the east. Move!" he ordered rapidly, returning back to his normal, commander state.

Without another word, everyone went as they were told. Wufei cursed in Chinese under his breath, but complied. He knew the mission came first.

* * *

Trin was awoken as rough hands lifted her out of the chair and dragged her down the hallway. After a few moments of walking they entered a room and she was thrown into a chair again and strapped in; Acire was put into an identical steel chair next to her. She blinked against the brightness of the room, suddenly realizing her vision was no longer blurry. With surprise she realized she had felt completely healthy except for a dull headache as opposed to earlier that day when she sincerely thought she was going to die.

As her eyes finally adjusted to the intensity of light in the room, she saw a man walk through the doorway. A strange metal mask covered the upper half of his face, so that only his eyes were visible. He smiled as he stopped in front of Trin.

"Feeling better, are you? Good. I needed you to be one hundred percent for the procedure" he sneered as he looked at her thoughtfully.

Trin's eyes lit up with fire as realization sank in.

"What did you do to me?" she demanded as she shot up from her slouched position, the bounds once again restraining her.

"A harmless virus, that's all" he grinned as he watched her struggle in enjoyment.

Trin glared at him, her eyes full of hatred. "At the carnival," she stated simply.

His grin grew wider. "Clever girl."

"I knew I wouldn't have a problem restraining your friend here, but you, I wasn't so sure" he continued as he circled her slowly. "I couldn't have you messing up my plans, now could I?"

Trin's fists clenched she listened. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"How did you know where we were after we relocated?"

He chuckled. "Aren't you just full of questions? A tracker attached to one of the gundams, simple as that. I figured we'd attack before they traced it"

"Now. I'm right to understand you have been protected by none other than Heero Yuy and his team?" he questioned as he stopped in front of her again. She didn't answer as she continued to glare at him.

"Would you like to tell me where Heero is? Because I doubt they're still on that island"

"Fuck you" she snarled.

He frowned.

"Now what kind of language is that?"

Her blood boiled. How she wished she could strangle him right now. She knew of course Heero wouldn't be on the island. After searching it and not finding them, they would most likely return to the base where Dorothy and the others were. She had overheard them talking, and she knew it was somewhere on the east coast of America. Heero had also given her the number of the base, incase something like this happened. She knew it by heart.

Realizing he wasn't going to get anything out of her by simply talking, he got up and walked over to Acire. He looked at her for a moment, then swiftly slapped her across the face. The girl cried out as her head snapped to the side.

Trin clenched her fists tighter, feeling her nails puncture the skin. With another swift gesture, his hand clasped over Acire's nose and mouth. The girl belt in her chair, struggling to get a single breath of air. Trin's eyes widened. He wanted them alive, so he wouldn't kill her. Would he? She didn't have much time to consider her options as she saw Acire's face turn a faint shade of blue. If she gave him the wrong location it might buy them some time, but he might be able hack into a top-secret government database and find that no such base existed. The only good option seemed to be for her to tell him the phone number. She couldn't risk her friend's life. Silently she asked the pilots to forgive her.

"All I know is a phone number" she said stiffly. He smiled with satisfaction and let go of Acire, the girl gasping the air hungrily. He pressed a button on the wall and a steel panel moved, revealing a screen.

"Why don't we call Heero now, eh?" he said as his hand paused over the keyboard. Trin glared at him and with some difficulty spat out the numbers. He punched them in and waited as the computer processed the call.

"Yuy" the familiar monotone on the other end answered, the screen still blank. Trin's head dropped. She had hoped they wouldn't answer.

"Ah, Heero Yuy. Very good" he smiled. "I guess I won't have to kill you after all" he added, as he looked at Trin.

The screen flickered and an image of Heero appeared, the other pilots joining him. Their eyes widened as they saw the masked man with Trin and Acire tied up in the background.

"Who are you?" Heero snapped.

The man chuckled once again.

"You should know who I am, Heero" he said. Heero's eyes widened slightly. His voice sounded so familiar.

"Now, I don't want you boys trying anything, I'll deal with you later. Keep in mind, I can kill them anytime"

As to prove this, he gestured to one of the guards by the door. He walked forward and heavily slapped Trin across the face. A trickle of blood formed in the corner of her mouth. An angry growl escaped her throat as she lunged forward, testing her limits once more. The guard backed away in surprise.

"I'll kill you all, I swear" the brunette growled, glaring daggers at them.

The man grinned. "And how will you do that, my dear?"

"There'll come a time you'll wish you never asked that" she hissed.

"Pretty big words for a little lady such as yourself" he taunted. Turning back to the screen he glanced at the clock at the bottom corner. It read 'Call Length: 50 seconds'.

"I think I've made my point clear, now if you excuse me, I've got some business to attend to with the girls"

With that, he hit a button and the image of the pilots disappeared.

* * *

"Goddamn it!" Duo cried as he punched the wall in rage.

"Wait a minute. Look"

Everyone turned to look at the bottom of the screen where Trowa was pointing. There must've been a malfunction, because the computer showed that the line was still connected. They watched tensely as the computer searched for the source. Suddenly it beeped and information came up. A dark glow appeared in Heero's eyes.

"Gotcha"







A/N: Hey! Well here's Ch. 18, hope you liked! So are things starting to make sense? Also, Ch. 2 for Silent Assassin will be up later tonight, so check that out if you want. AND, I'm working on a new GW ficcy, so I hope to have that up soon. ^^ I'm so excited, I finally watched the first four episodes of GW!! And they're so KAWAII! I'm gonna go watch 'em again! Ja!

Luv,

~Arion~