Recreation Room, Seaside Laboratory

"That has got to be the lamest end to a virtual game that I have ever seen!"

Duo's disgusted comment made Trowa jerk awake, and he opened his eyes to see that Heero had put his video game on the wide screen viewer. Glancing around the room, he saw Trynity bending over her computer working diligently, Wufei exercising, and both Quatre and Lars watching Heero's game with Duo as Dr. Stryfe studied the magazine he had purchased at the video store that afternoon.

"I can't read these damn notes! I ought to complain to the headmaster about Drivel's behavior!" Trynity tossed her papers in the air.

"Fat lot of good that will do you," commented Wufei. "I think Drivel and Himmler are having private meetings during lunch, if you get my drift."

Trynity frowned, and having come to the conclusion that a complaint would get her no where, she started to gather up her notes.

Trowa shook his head, still feeling a little groggy from his nap, and he looked at the video game frozen on the screen. The hero was lying in the pool of blood spreading from the mortal wound inflicted on the female lead of the game. Trowa blinked, then looked around the room again. Dr. Stryfe closed his game tip magazine and headed towards Heero who stared at the screen in disbelief.

"I think you lost the game," remarked Quatre. "And this has been a waste of an evening. Don't we have a paper due for Drivel tomorrow?"

"I ain't doing it! The god of death has nothing left to write about."

"Oh no!" cried Trynity in despair. "Was there an assignment?"

"Didn't you read the small print on the corner of the chalkboard?" asked Lars with a snort of laughter.

"Is yours done?" Dr. Stryfe asked him.

Lars stopped laughing.

Trowa looked down in his lap to see that he had a notebook and a couple pages already written. He re-read his composition, some nonsense about a prince exiled to another galaxy, then he turned his attention back to the game on the screen. The fight scene music was still playing while the third character in the fight party stood by uselessly as the other two lay motionless covered in blood.

"What the hell is this game?" Trowa suddenly blurted out. He was disoriented, confused.

Heero looked at him as if he had lost his mind. "You were with me when I bought it this afternoon. Remember? You put the moves on that clerk and struck out. For a while you were taking notes, but you fell asleep while I was leveling up my fighters in the Wastelands."

Trowa looked at the table in front of the futon and saw the discarded packaging. A deep sense of loss overwhelmed him as he noted the title: The Lost Prince. "Have you been playing this all night?"

"What is your problem?" asked Duo. He looked at the notebook. "Hey, you've been doing your assignment! You trying to make the rest of us look bad?"

Quatre giggled as he snatched Trowa's notebook then began to read aloud Trowa's sad attempt at writing. Trowa's face was burning with embarrassment as the others laughed, then he launched himself at Quatre fully intending to break his nose. "I'm going to kill you!"

"Just what I need! A fight!" Lars leaped into the fray, and soon enough there was enough tousling going on to annoy Dr. Stryfe.

"Knock it off! You all have work to do! Get to it!" Their guardian smacked Duo over the head with his magazine, then picked up the controller Heero had abandoned in disbelief that he could lose the game.

Trowa was picking up his notebook when he heard Dr. Stryfe grunt. "I thought you had enough magic left, Heero Yuy, but you always ignore the power of the white mage."

They all turned toward the screen, and Trowa watched as the third member of the fighting party began the elaborate out motions of casting magic, and he saw that the game had ended, that the graphic movie began. Trowa watched with amazement as sparkling light descended over the figures on the ground and only a second following the woman rose and she bent over the unconscious hero.

Heero rubbed his hands together, happy that his record was in tact. "I guess I didn't lose after all."

"Get to work! Now!" Dr. Stryfe was disgusted with their lack of academic concern.

But they all ignored him to watch the glorious ending of the prince's triumphant coronation, his imperial guards at his side, all monsters now vanquished.

Trowa didn't feel like finishing his paper when the final scene of the new emperor embracing his wife had faded from the screen. He just wouldn't go to school tomorrow. Mrs. Drivel the Composition Butcher could both go to hell along with her red pen. His dream had seemed so real that he still felt as if he had lost his one true love. He ignored Dr. Stryfe's reminder that he still had homework to do and headed to his room.

Leaving the lights off, he threw himself on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He felt like a fool for the feelings churning inside him. He wanted to return to the dream to give it a happy ending, yet he had tried that before with other dreams. It never worked.

His eyes focused on the open window where a cool, salty breeze rustled the sheer curtains, and he could see the bright moon shining, hear the sounds of the sea pounding against the rocky shore in the distance. Sighing as he stared at it, he realized that although he wasn't the lost prince of Calabria, at least Heavyarms was still in one piece down in the hangar below the laboratory.

But it was cold consolation to realize that Heavyarms was all he had in the world.

Trowa closed his eyes, yet tears rolled out corners to drip down his face. One silly dream inspired by a video game shouldn't have the power to render his life meaningless. But his heart felt even deader than it had before he fell asleep in the recreation room listening to Heero play his game.

Behind his closed lids, he saw nothing, felt nothing.

He had no feelings.

No memories.

No Arora.