Mischief Mage: Yay my precious computer and the half finished chapter on it has finally been returned to me! The second to last match. Hurrah!


Trowa Barton found Quatre in his room, curled up in a fetal position in the corner, sobbing slightly over the lumps of wood and polish in his cupped hands. After a few minutes of consoling him with sympathetic words, Trowa was able to get Quatre upright so that Trowa could then prod him in the right direction with the bow of the violin that had been lying on the bed. Trowa would willingly have put a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder but with Duo around, you could never be too careful. His fangirls seemed to follow him everywhere and they seemed to enjoy … embellishing the relationships of the other pilots immensely. Catherine had blocked Quatre's number after she had stumbled across a number of graphic 3x4 websites that Trowa had been unaware of. In the following argument Trowa had asked who it was that he was apparently having beautiful sex with, his argument being that if he was having an NC-17 rated relationship as a minor with a minor, that he, of all people, had the right to know who it was. Catherine had put her throwing knives to work that night. Trowa could now wear 3 pretty, pretty earrings from each ear.

Trowa gave Quatre a soft tap on the head with the bow, indicating that he was to sit down. Trowa glanced sideways as a low growl told him exactly how Duo felt about having his "corner of crazy" invaded. Trowa prodded Quatre once more and the blonde boy shuffled about a foot away from the farthest reach of Duo's teeth.

Once Quatre had been dealt with, Trowa sat down opposite to Wufei who had returned all his pieces to their places and was now sitting, arms folded, looking very smug indeed.

Trowa set out his pieces, all sixteen of them. Wufei raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'm afraid that I'm not as accommodating as Quatre is"

Wufei shrugged

"Fine."

"Aaaand before we begin, I would like to introduce some people to you."

Wufei's eyebrow arched higher than before.

Trowa gestured to his chess pieces.

"The two rooks are Georgiana and Ignatius; the knights, Sir Rasputin and Dame Glorifillia; the Bishops, Sister Morgana and Brother Cornelius; Queen Catherine and King Lucifer; and the pawns, Corporal Arabella, Francesca, Narcissa, Alexandria, Fitzwilliam, Sylvester and Leviticus."

Wufei's eyebrow was in danger of disappearing into his hair, which is a big deal considering how tightly he was wearing it back.

"You named all of you're pieces?"

"I did"

"Well then, what's that pawn's name there?" Wufei asked pointing accusingly to a battered looking piece at the very end of the line.

"That's Bernard" Trowa told him while scowling at the pawn.

"You mean like that mime guy that joined the circus and went out with Catherine for a while?"

Trowa nodded shortly.

Wufei went on.

"Queen Catherine? Is there any kind of blatant symbolism going on here?"

Trowa paused for a minute before saying "No", not meeting his opponent's eye.

Silently, Trowa gracefully picked up a pawn (Sylvester) and placed it down two squares along the board.

Wufei was still confused by Trowa's behaviour.

"Was there any point in name all of your chess pieces?"

The ghost of a grin flashed across Trowa's lips.

"Yes" he said simply.

Wufei glanced down at the chess board and gasped. Trowa could see the shapes of Georgiana, Morgana, Arabella, Francesca and the other female pieces fade from the reflection in Wufei's eyes. Half of Trowa's pieces were invisible to him now.

Wufei glared at Trowa

"That was a cheap trick. How did you know about my condition anyway?"

Trowa smiled slightly to himself.

"It doesn't matter how I knew. What matters is-" he said whilst reaching for the timer.

Bing

"-now that my first turn in complete. We can't go back"

Wufei looked as dangerous as a bomb being deactivated by a blind folded Edward Scissorhands at a 21st party.

Trowa smirked as smoke began pouring out his opponent's nostrils. Wufei didn't know, but Trowa had actually been seeing the same therapist as him (at least until Wufei vaporized the building). Catherine had sent Trowa there after he had tried to assassinate Bernard the Mime. But it wasn't his fault, all brothers get a bit…protective don't they? He had just wandered into the circus like he owned the place and then Catherine had just begun…swooning whenever he passed.

Besides, the first incident hadn't come anywhere near killing the guy. Trowa had simply mixed high concentration weed killer into the black and white face paint. As a result, the mime had run back and forth backstage, clutching his face and screaming like a little girl. Trowa had resisted the urge to ask Catherine "Guess: what's black, white and red all over?"

And from there on began something of a war between clown and mime. Bernard let the teething lion's into Trowa's caravan while he was changing. Trowa signed Bernard's up for training for the "human cannonball act". Bernard put a scorpion in Trowa's performing pants. Trowa told Catherine that he had seen Bernard hitting on the magic show assistants, the useless flirts that they were and Bernard told Catherine that Trowa had been ringing Quatre using the ringmaster's personal phone. Trowa poured glue on the underside of Bernard's shoes before the start of a show. Then, in an act of the utmost wickedness, Bernard mixed purple hair dye in with Trowa's hair gel. At breaking point, Trowa replaced Bernard's pre-"Bernard the amazing fire-eating mime act"-drink with kerosene. He was sure that the audience had never seen anything like that before. As one would guess, Bernard was no longer dating Catherine and a smug Trowa was given a 3:30 booking at the therapist's practice in town.

Bing

Wufei had grudgingly finished his turn.

Trowa could only smile as he led Wufei's seven pieces to one side of the board, quite happily using Bernard the Pawn as bait while the girls went up through the gap to encircle Wufei's troops.

Wufei could probably guess what was happening, but honestly, how can you fight a lump of wood that you can't see?

At length, Wufei drew near enough to Bernard to take the pathetic little pawn. Using his bishop he crashed down with all his frustration onto the chewed looking chunk of wood. All that was left of Bernard was a pile of cream coloured sawdust. Trowa pulled out a dainty tassle duster and gently swept the powdered Bernard off of the board. Something similar had been done for the real Bernard too.

"You really don't care that I just disintegrated your pawn do you?" Wufei asked, his eyes flicking sideways to Quatre who as watching from the floor and looking scandalized.

"No, not really"

No one checks out Trowa's sister. The last time Duo had ever made a comment on Catherine looking pretty in the circus ring, Trowa had shot him between the eyes with a paintball gun from point blank range.

Trowa moved a knight into place, or rather, he fiddled with the air over the chess board.

"Checkmate"

"What?"

"There's no where for your king to go."

"Prove it."

"Fine. You know what? I lied about the girl's names. Their names are actually Francis, George, Morgan, Aaron, Cat, Narcissus, Phill and Alexander."

And lo and behold, the eight pieces magically appeared before Wufei's eyes with every move of the King being into the way of one of the white pieces.

sflump

Trowa glanced across to see that Wufei had crumpled and rolled off of his seat, eyes wide open and staring, every few second he would twitch.

"What's wrong with him?" Heero asked as he rose from the gradually vacating couch.

'I think he's got hypo-confidence-ia. It's a bit like hypothermia except it happens when his pride or masculinity is severely affronted. Wait here; I know where Quatre keeps the medicine'

And so Trowa dashed off down the corridor to the medicine cabinet…or rather the medicine closet…one could call it a medical pantry really.

Trowa stuck his fringed head into the store room. Quatre had really prepared for every eventuality. The medicines were ordered according to the pilot that would most likely need them. The part-time clown couldn't help but scan the shelves.

The 'Heero Yuy' shelf wasn't really a shelf at all. The name was simply stuck to the wall above a large bubble-wrap suit to prevent him from injuring himself or anyone else if need be. It was bullet proof, knife proof, anti-bacterial, covered his mouth to prevent poison being taken, was strong enough to hold off a plummeting fridge and came in a range of colours.

'Duo Maxwell' had a whole wall to himself. There were strait-jackets that could be layered onto each other, muzzles, chains, and sedatives in every possible form; in darts, syringes, powder and bullets with instructions on dosage and usage for each state of the drug.

The slightly-taller-than-the-other-pilots pilot could not help but frown as he glanced over his small shelf. The only thing there was several DVD's. One was labelled, Trowa's life age Jan 195- Feb 196. There was enough for a small series. He assumed that it was just in case he got amnesia again. His friends seemed to be getting a bit paranoid. Twice in a lifetime. Give it a break.

Quatre's shelf consisted of various jars of designer drugs, happy pills and flinstone's jelly vitamins.

Finally, Trowa reached Wufei's shelf. He found the label 'for low confidence levels. Must enter the blood stream.' Grabbing a syringe of the pale fluid, Trowa dashed back to the chess room, deciding to read the rest of the label after he had dealt with the unconscious pilot.

'I've got it' He said briskly before ramming the syringe into Wufei's thigh.

Once the fluid had left the plastic tube, Trowa slowly removed the syringe and turned to the instructions written in Quatre's hand, reading it aloud.

'Maximum of one syringe a day. Once dosage has been taken, put Wufei in his room with a phone book, a telephone and the box of magazines and videos from the village which is under the stairs. Lock the door from the outside and do not disturb under any circumstances. There should be signs of life within a few hours.'

Heero and Trowa looked at each other in puzzlement before carrying out the advised steps.

Once downstairs again, the pair glanced to Quatre, who was still sitting in the corner just out of reach of Duo's jaws.

'Quatre…' Heero said slowly, 'What was in that?'

Blushing slightly, Quatre tried to maintain an air of dignity as he spoke. 'You won't believe this but I'm sure it works, you have to tru-'

'What was it?'

'Liquid Viagra' Quatre said meekly.

There was a brief silence in which even Duo ceased his growling, jaw dropped.

The tone and the atmosphere was captured effectively and succinctly by the next two words uttered.

'Uh oh'