Deut was playing with the pipes again, as was her favorite tactic to annoy Oz.  With a bit of redirecting of a few major pipes and a few hundred pounds of quick drying putty, she had flooded every mobile suit on the base.  Whenever the cockpits were opened, the unfortunate pilots would get instant baths.  It was likely that only a few of the pilots would suffer that fate before sending out a warning to the others, but Deut wasn't overly upset about it.  The mobile suits were ruined either way.

The only suit she didn't tamper with was Tallgeese.  She left that one to Dustin's twisted mind.  Sure enough, in the middle of filling a set of Aires with water, she saw the other braided loony slip into the hanger, grinning like the madman he was.  She shook her head and proceeded to ignore him as he made use of the thirty thousand gallons of rubber cement he had procured.  The gooey substance was in every wire bundle and circuit board, filling the cockpit and covering the Gundam in a huge mountain of stickiness.

Avoiding the sticky goop covering the floor, Deut scurried out of the hanger and left Dustin to his work.  She had a lot of work to do involving all of the toilets on base and a huge bag of cherry bombs tied to her belt.  Childish or not, the pranks still caused a lot of damage.

*     *     *

David and Daniel were running interference for the others.  Together, they had rounded up a fairly good number of the personnel on base and stuffed them into various closets.  To be more insulting than anything, they used an age-old method to jam the doors closed.  Nails.  And lots of them.  A few people that they thought strong enough to kick down the doors ended up thrown in car trunks.

One soldier, a huge burly man that was the type no one ever wanted to meet in a dark alley, managed to get in a lucky punch.  A rather stolid blow across the jaw only served to tick David off.  The soldier ended up at the top of a flagpole dangling from his ankles, butt-naked and covered in bits of fish parts stapled to his body.

*     *     *

Duo and Donovan had teamed up to massacre the computer systems.  Donovan was reprogramming systems, installing new programs and introducing a set of viruses and worms that he had personally created.  Duo was filling the towers with crickets.  Where he had acquired almost fifty thousand live crickets, no one really wanted to know.

Dante passed by them as they were working, an evil smirk on his face.  In one hand, he had several bungee cords.  In the other, a bucket of fish guts.  Duo glanced at him curiously as he opened an electrical socket, hooked up the bungee cord to work as a slingshot, stuffed a mass of slimy intestines in front of the bungee recoil path and delicately replaced the socket covering.  At the slightest touch, the entire thing would be set off, showering anyone in the vicinity with rotting fish organs.  From the looks of it, Dante had accidentally set off one or two while setting them up.  As it was, he wasn't riding back with the rest of them.  The brunette teen dripping with fish guts apparently figured that out early on, because he had stolen Zechs's car keys.  After escaping, he would roll on all the upholstery before abandoning the car.

David jogged by, saluting his siblings as he passed.  Over his shoulder was a squirming hostage he had hogtied.  Upon closer inspection it appeared to be Noin.  The dark-haired woman was kicking him nonstop, though he seemed to be ignoring her.  She let out a poorly gagged cry when she spotted the other two Maxwells tampering with the computers.  Being told that there were a whole army of the insane Americans was one thing, seeing them was another entirely.

Noin's scream echoed through the building a moment later, not wholly hindered by the gag wrapped around her head.  Her cry was followed an instant later by a deeper, masculine voice sounding out in deference to its tormented owner.  Dante gave David a questioning look when he reappeared minus his hostage.

"What did you do to her?" Dante asked, shocked.  It wasn't that he cared much about the fate of Oz officials, but Noin had clearly been upset.  "And who was the other guy?"

"I don't know what happened to her exactly," David shrugged.  "I gave her to Dustin.  Last I saw, he was converging on Noin and Zechs with a hot glue gun."

"I thought he was last seen with the rubber cement," Dante muttered.

"He apparently finished," David smirked.

"Where's Daniel?" Dante suddenly asked.  "He was supposed to be with you."

David shrugged dismissively.  "I haven't seen him since we hung that guy from the flagpole outside."

"And you have no idea where he went?"

Five thousand car alarms chose that moment to go off, making enough racket to be heard all over the base.  The brothers exchanged wry looks.  Insurance premiums just went through the roof thanks to them.

"I think I know where he is," David smirked.  The smoke alarms and water sprinklers followed his statement.  "And what he set on fire."  He pulled out a small cell phone and punched in a preset number.  "Deut?  Water sprinklers, please."  In the span of three heartbeats, the system was shut back off.  He hung up.  "Not that you don't need the shower," he began.

"Trust me, you're not funny," Dante assured him.  David just smirked.

*     *     *

Treize had been backed into a corner.  The room had only two exits.  One was blocked by Demitri, the braided madman being the only one of the two in the room still armed.  The other exit was a seemingly harmless door.  The only thing that kept the Oz leader from taking the route was the fairly disconcerting screeching noise coming from the other side of the barrier.  That he had been herded masterfully through the building to that very destination, Treize was certain.  He sighed.

"You're still mad about one of your brothers being held hostage, aren't you?" he asked in a somewhat defeated tone.

"That would have been me," Demitri said, violet eyes flashing.  "You know, I never got a chance to fully extend my gratitude that you didn't actually shoot me."

Treize didn't care for his tone of voice.  He eyed the door containing the screeching noise, seriously considering going through it.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, amazed that his voice was still steady.

"Behold," Demitri said theatrically, waving one hand towards the mystery door.  "A room filled with four hundred vampire bats."  Treize's eyebrows shot towards his hair line, the look of shock mingling with mild confusion as to what the teenager planned to do to him.  "Now gaze upon this squirt gun filled with bat pheromones," Demitri continued, waggling a blue plastic toy.  Treize took a step back, blue eyes widening.  "Did I mention that all of the bats were male?"

"I think that much was obvious," Treize muttered.  He flinched when he was squirted a number of times with the small gun.

"Ever been in a situation that you know you'll be reporting to a therapist some day?" Demitri snickered.

"Not since your last visit."

"Buck up," Demitri grinned, waving him towards the entrance of the room at gunpoint.  "We've only done a few billion dollars in damage."

"Thanks."

Careful not to let any of the winged creatures out, the brunette teen jerked open the door and shoved the Oz leader in, slamming and locking the door behind him.  The last thing he saw was a furry aerial assault upon Treize's huddled form.

To Be Continued…

I got off my butt and did something with the fic after such an extended absence (freak of nature, there's a lot of reading necessary to learn medicine) after someone wrote in and reminded me just how long I was taking.  All I can say is oops…

Up next, learn the mystery of why Darren wanted several hundred empty data disks, twenty tubes of superglue, ninety wild hogs and forty pounds of Crisco…