Worth Fighting For Part 19
A Test of Maths
Heero stood up straight and tall, his head held high as the door to his room slide open to reveal Devalin who was standing there, dressed in a black suit.
"It is time Heero Yuy, to see just how much you love Duo Maxwell."
Heero's back straighten more, if it was possible at Devalin's words before he replied. "I don't have anything to prove to you Mr. Donavere."
Devalin's eyes narrowed at the change in Heero's voice, it held more control and more authority than it had last night, in fact the man that was standing in front of him was completely different to the boy that had been in his office the day before, nearly crying from watching his lover suffer. Heero had changed over night.
Heero was dressed in tight fitting clothes that allowed him maximum movements, a pair of dark green spandex which came down to his knees and cling to his thighs and ass and tucked into the spandex was the hem of a green tank top that showed off Heero's chest and arms (1). Heero's eyes were narrow and glared at Devalin with sheer power, his lips were set in a straight firm line and everything about Heero gave a very strong expression of armed and dangerous.
"Let's do this Devalin." Heero commanded taking a long stride forward.
"I'll give the orders, thank you very much." Devalin snapped as a few of his men began to move with Heero. Everyone paused.
"Gomen nasai (2)." Heero said, giving a mocking bow.
Devalin snarled and spun round on his heel.
Heero smirked as Devalin began to storm away, it looked like his plan would work after all.
* * *
Relena didn't want to move from Duo's side but as time due closer to when the 4th task would begin; Relena knew she had to go.
Wufei was standing in Duo's bedroom door; his soft black eyes standing guard over the two siblings.
"Lena? Trowa says it is time to go."
Relena gave a nod and she stood up, slowly releasing her brother's hand.
"Don't worry about him, I will be here and I wont leave his side until you get back."
Relena placed a light kiss on Duo's forehead and smiled down at her brother. "I'll be back as soon as I can, but I'm going to go support Heero for us both." Relena moved away from the bed and as she passed Wufei she placed a kiss on his cheek. "Thank You." She whispered.
"Your welcome, give my luck to Heero."
"I will." She whispered again before she hurried from the room. Wufei watched her go, a silly smile playing on his lips as he recalled the small kiss she had given him. Shaking his head, Wufei berated himself for giving into her charm before he walked over to Duo and lowered himself onto the bed beside his friend. He laid next to Duo, who turned towards the source of heat and snuggled against his friend's chest. Wufei wrapped his arms around Duo's cold body and held Duo's braid firmly in one hand, gently rubbing his thumb over the very tip of it. His eyes travelled the course of Duo's body, taking in the pale skin which was cold and clammy against Wufei's touch, and the small muscle spasmed that every now and then shook Duo's body.
Wufei's eyes narrowed in anger at his friend's condition but the girl behind it was already dead and couldn't pay for her crimes against Duo... and Heero. Wufei knew that the intercourse that had happened between the girl and Duo was a result of the drugs in Duo's system and that the girl had looked very similar to Heero. Duo was not to blame and Wufei prayed that Heero would understand that.
And as Wufei laid there, silently listening to Duo's irregularly breathing, watching over the sleeping angel, the others raced towards the park, where the 4th task was going to take place, and towards the challenge that awaited Heero.
* * *
Devalin climbed out of the car followed closely by Heero whose cool blue eyes studied the long and dangerous obstacle course that Devalin had set up for him.
"What do you think?" Devalin asked.
Heero said nothing, just regarded the man in front of him with his eyes.
"I designed it myself, just for this task. Well, do you accept this mission?"
Heero looked back at the course before meeting Devalin's eyes.
"Ninmu Ryoukai (3)"
"I was hoping that you were going to say that." Devalin laughed lightly. "Shall we begin?"
* * *
"Mike you need to slow down!"
"NO! We'll be late!"
"We'll be dead!"
"SLOW DOWN!"
"Not until we reach the park, I must be there. I have to be there, for Duo and for Heero!!!"
* * *
Devalin was taking Heero through the different stages of the course just as Mike and the others skidded to a stop in the parking lot before they rushed out and over to them.
They were greeted by Mike; who decided that words weren't good enough for Devalin and his fist slammed into Devalin's already broken nose causing Devalin to howl in pain and his other fist punched Devalin hard in the stomach causing Devalin to double over in pain where Mike's knee then came up and jabbed itself against Devalin's jaw bone.
Within seconds Trowa and Quatre had their arms around Mike, stopping him from attacking Devalin.
Relena moved close to Heero, her eyes studying the course and then the cast that covered Heero's left arm.
"You can't do that course with only one hand." She said.
"I can do it." Heero replied.
"You'll kill yourself." Relena protested.
"I can do it." Heero repeated.
"I don't like this one bit, Heero you will cause yourself serious bodily harm!"
Heero snapped his eyes to her and she fell silent under his gaze, moving backwards to stand beside Quatre needing comfort from the look her best friend had just given her.
"Relena, leave Heero be, he needs support, not discouragement."
"Ok, I'm sorry."
Heero gave a nod as he turned and walked towards the beginning of the course.
Relena gripped hold of Quatre's hand without realising it.
"He'll be fine." Quatre reassured her.
"I hope you are right." Mike commented.
"Well, if anything, he'll come out looking better than Devalin does." Trowa joked looking over where Devalin was being held by Sally so she could stop the bleeding.
"I don't know why she's even helping him."
"Cause it's Sally's nature."
~
Heero took a deep breath to steady himself as he climbed up the ladder, below him he heard the cry of Devalin's order to tell his men to start the course and as Heero climbed onto the platform he understood Devalin's words as he watched the large steel blades swing back and forth and the platforms that moved round and round and not to mention the jets that were blowing fire over the causeway.
~
Relena gave a scream as the course jumped into life.
"I can't watch." She gasped; spinning round before looking back, her feelings of concern outweighed her horror.
"He'll be fine." Quatre repeated again but whether it was to reassure himself or Relena, was unknown.
~
As Heero stood there, watching the course, he suddenly saw the way through. It was all down to timing.
"Four, three, two, one." Heero counted as the first blade swung low. "Two, Four, Six." He counted again for the next blade. "Wait three." He told himself before continuing the counting for the next two blades that swung together. "One, two, three, four and two, four, six." Heero gave a nod and looked at the next part of the course. It was a rotating platform.
Deciding to do one bit at a time, Heero stepped forward up to the point that he was standing directly in front of the blade, so that he could feel the slight wind that it caused when it swung.
"Four, three, two, one. Four, three, two, one, Four, three..." and Heero jumped forward. "Two, four..." and jumped forward again, coming to rest in a meter gap between the 1st two blades and the next one. "Four, three, two, one, damn it." Heero cursed as he suddenly realised that one of the blades was slightly in front of the other and if he jumped through them on the count of three then he would end up losing an arm. His eyes drifted down to his own broken arm and he sighed, he could risk it but a risk was always dangerous.
~
"What's he doing?" Relena asked.
"Counting."
Relena glanced at Trowa. "Pardon?"
"Each blade has it's own swing count. Heero is working out the swing count before he tries to get pass it."
"Clever but Heero's doing a degree in Maths, why would Devalin set this for him?"
"Duo's worst subject was Maths remember?" Quatre replied. "This course was for Duo, not Heero."
"Oh, I see, so Devalin thought it would throw Duo off?"
"Something like that, it was too late to change everything in order to make it fit for Heero. Plus Devalin's knowledge on Heero is nothing like his knowledge is on Duo. He spent ages studying everything he could about Duo."
"Um... ummmmmmm!"
"Interesting." Mike commented. "I am wondering why he didn't jump them."
"If you look closely." Devalin slid up to the group. "The second blade is a fraction in front of the 1st. Therefore..."
"If he tried to jump it he would have been hit."
"Yes. It's a good thing Heero is small and slim or he would of never been able to crawl under the blades."
~
Heero made sure he was well away from the blades before he raised his body up off the platform and back on to his feet. The next blade was easy to jump pass and he was left standing by the edge of the platform counting the seconds it took for the moving platform to spin round. 5 seconds from one side to another. Heero stepped lightly on and lightly off and then jumped back as fire jets suddenly sprayed in front of him.
Heero's footing slipped on the edge of the platform and he nearly lost his balance which, if he had lost, would have meant that he would have fallen from the platform and failed the task... not to mention, broken his back from hitting the ground this high up.
The first fire jet, Heero timed, went off every 5 seconds and lasted double the time the 2nd fire jet went off for, which went off every 10 seconds, but the tricky part was to untie the rope and swing across to the next platform before the 2nd fire jet went off again and there was no gap between the two fire jets and the rope.
"One, two, three, four, five." Heero counted and as the 2nd jet died down Heero leapt forward and just missed his ass being burned as the next jet started. Heero immediately forgot about his poor, hot ass as he reached the rope, tugged it free and suddenly panicked, with one arm broken he could not gripped the rope as well as he normally could.
"Seven, six, five..."
Heero counted as he tighten his grip the best he could before kicking off from the platform and swing over the gap to the next platform where, without thinking, he darted forward, lucky managing to miss the two flame jets and jumped onto the next moving platform which left him safe for a few minutes.
~
Devalin snorted.
"He's good." Mike said.
Devalin just snorted again.
~
Now safely on the 2nd moving platform, Heero watched the final platform with interested. Three blades and two fire jets.
The first blade was not important as the moving platform took him straight to the gap between that blade and the next one.
The next blade was swing fast on a two second beat while the two flame jets between the blades were a 4 second on off beat and the final blade was also a two beat.
"Screwy." Heero muttered under his breath as he moved from moving to still platform.
However as he stood there, his eyes wondered up to the beams over head that the blades were attached too. Heero didn't know if they were strong enough to hold his weight but against steel and fire, Heero chose to chance it and he began to climb up, with difficulty due to the clumsy, large shape of his cast.
~
"Clever." Mike said and once again Devalin snorted.
"So he's managed to find a way though the course. Big deal. It would have been upsetting to his maths professors if he had failed since the whole basics of this course is on very simple maths."
"You are just a sore loser." Relena cheered as Heero landed down on the final platform and began his climb down back to the ground.
"We will see tomorrow, Miss Maxwell."
"You've lost. Your big fancy talk. It's all an act and you have lost everything. Heero will win tomorrow and you will be eating your own shit." Relena hissed.
Devalin turned and looked at her. "Miss Maxwell, if you are not careful it will be you, that will be eating shit, as you so nicely put it. Duo and Heero may win but victory will always be mine. No matter what!"
"You'll kill them anyway." Relena gasped, her eyes growing wide as she realised the true depths of Devalin's plan. "This was just a way to toy with them." She waved a hand at the task. "It was one big laugh, everything you have done means nothing. You're going to kill them anyway."
Devalin stepped forward and grabbed Relena's arm.
"Victory will be mine, I always get what I want Miss Maxwell and I want your brother's head on a silver plate."
He pulled back and Relena shuddered realising that she was the only one that heard Devalin's confusion.
"I will see you tomorrow Miss Maxwell. Good day to you."
TBC...
(1) The old Heero is back ^_^ I just had to put him in these clothes after all it is tradition.
(2) "Forgive Me" I think that's what it is in Japanese... I'm not all that sure.
(3) Mission Accepted (I think... I hope). Just one of Heero's normal phrases.
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