AN: Finally, I'm free to write this chapter without any guilty, time constraints and whatever this world can throw at me! This is simply wonderful! Pure freedom! :

Sorry about last week "no dedication". I was simply too busy to do anything except just write and post it up on the net. Sigh . . . That week was definitely the worst time I had in my life. School, homework, outings, etc . . .

Ok, enough of rambling, I like to thank my faithful, lovable reviewers: Raizard333, Shini no Tenshi, Bunny, Athene Saile, Moon Fighter and Magicia Wiseskill. Chapter after chapter, you guys have preserved to review. So thank you so much! Same goes to all the regular reviewers of the previous chapter: Ybewd, Kuria and haguregumo! Ha ha . . . makes me very happy to learn you all enjoy what I write. It's my source of encouragement.

And also those new to the reviews: Welcome ashblackraven and Chikara-Yuy! Hope you will enjoy the chapters forthcoming. A word of caution: I usually update only every two to three weeks. But rest assured, I am a regular updater, unless I have some pressing things that makes me delay for up to a month. :

On with fic!

Chapter 51

Principal Witherby then turned her attention to the next victim: the sister of Helen.

Her sharp eyes seized up the brunette from head to toe, taking in every little detail in an effort to discern wither the girl would be proper or not.

Sure, her unique purple eyes made her more outstanding than normal, but there was something strangely dangerous and mischievous about the girl, which Principal Witherby couldn't quite place a finger on. Otherwise, under normal circumstances, the principal would have easily dismissed her promptly from her mind, should they pass in the halls.

"Dorine Raceland?" she enquired gently, yet firmly. Her eyes caught the hint of a strong jaw line underneath the flowing locks as the girl moved forward. Principal Witherby frown deepened at that.

"Yes , Madam," came the sweet reply and an equally sweet smile that could charm any guy. Unfortunately and unknowingly for Duo, his adversary was a woman with years of experience behind her.

Without a word, the principal held out the white form to him. Sighing, Duo took it and exited the room obediently, luggage trailing dismally behind him.

Then came Quatre's turn, much to the pleasure of Principal Witherby. And she let her guard slip by offering the petite blond a smile. Only realizing what she had done when the remaining girls ogled at her unexpected show of favoritism.

Quickly clearing her throat and clinking her mouse faster than she had ever done in her whole life, she found the blond girl's information in record time.

"Quarisa Lauther, I presume?" she gently asked, her eyes scanning the page quickly. If anything, she was hardly surprised to find the girl's inheritance amounting to 125 million dollars worth on stock trade alone. Property was about 3 billion dollars altogether, scattered among the various planets. And that alone, was enough to make her mouth go dry.

When she received no answer from the participant, Principal Witherby hurriedly disengaged her eyes from the computer screen to look up. Only to find shy, cornflower-blue eyes meeting hers for a brief second, before the girl dropped her attention to the floor with a shy nod.

Principal Witherby licked her lips and tried hard not to howl with delight at the amount of wealth she could harvest from this gentile creature. Special programs and privileges would have to be created (of course), just for her if she was to milk this lovely creature for all she was worth.

With a triumphant smile and an even quicker reaction, she had the white form held out to her. Unable to keep her eyes from sliding back to the computer screen to gaze at the data of wealth displayed there.

Finally, there were only two people of the original five, left in the room. The principal breathed a sigh of relief and motioned the two girls forward with her left hand, while her right hand's fingers searched for the information on the two sisters.

"Who is Wuling Lee?" She called out and waited for a response. Wufei raised his hand.

"And Weiling?" Jess raised her hand; taking her cue from Wufei least they roused suspicion.

Meanwhile, Wufei resisted the urge to turn his head and stare at Jess.

'Weiling?' his mind asked, the question rolling around his head. 'Since when was she a "Weiling"?'

But the lady at the desk did not seem overly perturb by the differences in their looks or names. In fact, she scratched her chin thoughtfully, her eyes assessing the data on the computer.

'Calculating,' Wufei concluded, as he did his own assessment of her. 'And shrewd.'

As if sensing his less than pleasant thoughts of her, the principal looked up into his eyes. Wufei quickly adverted them to the floor, in an effort to look more demure. A long, uncomfortable silence followed as the lady took her time seizing him up from bottom to top.

Unexpectedly, help came from the person at his side. Jess, sensing something was amiss, quickly cut in just as the principal opened her mouth to say something.

"May we have our forms now? My sister and I are suffering from Jet-lag and we would really like to get everything over and done with as soon as possible." Innocently and sweetly asked, with as much dignity as she could master.

Principal Witherby blinked, surprised by this sudden and bold explanation. Especially when the timid-looking one was the one giving it.

But loosing her train of thought left the principal with nothing else to do but to concede to the girl's request.

"Through that door, please?" she directed as she handed them their forms, and she watched the two girls disappear through it.

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Once in the room, they found the rest of the boys lined up against the wall, grim looks on all their faces.

"What? The doctor has already checked you?" Wufei demanded, moving in front and leaving Jess to take his luggage as well as hers. Naturally, he missed the furious glare she shot into his back.

"Nah, she's not here yet," Duo sulky replied, his eyes trained on the curtain partition that separated them from the rest of the room.

"What's wrong with him?" Jess quickly asked, noticing the blond beside the brunette looking a little disheartened as well, winding a lock of hair round and round his finger. Now it was her turn to ignore the glare Wufei shot down at her.

"Him?" And Duo gave a short laugh. "He was so sure his acting was so superb that he could get out of the examination himself. Looks like the lady isn't easy to bluff."

"That's bad."

"Hn."

"Big question," Jess sudden perked up, raising her hand.

"What?"

"What are you guys going to do now?"

"What do you mean by "you"?" Wufei irritably asked, plonking down on the floor. "You mean "we"?"

"No. It's you. You and them have a problem. Not me."

"Will you quit making it sound like we are not normal?!!" the boy blasted, jumping to his feet and staring her down again.

"But you are not normal!"

"You!"

"SHUT UP!" Heero finally gave in to temptation and opened his mouth. "Hearing the two of you arguing is making me feel worse. And none of it is helping the situation in any way."

"We need a plan. Fast," Duo agreed, sitting himself down on the floor gingerly so as not to crumble the skirt badly. The rest, taking their cue from him, seated themselves in a circle.

Heero was the first to hit upon an idea and he enthusiastically put forth: "Hn. Easy." His hand went under his singlet to bring out his gun. "We shoot the doctor, hide the carcass, forged the handwriting and signature, then tonight, when everyone is asleep, we go bury the body in the fore . . ."

Twack!

A slim, beaded slipper flew into his face, cutting off his sentence. Everyone turned and frowned at the culprit. Meanwhile, Jess tried to hold the raging temper within her.

Slowly, the slipper slid down and landed on the floor with a solid "whack". Revealing a stone-faced boy with the outline of the slipper in red print.

"Um . . . Jess?" Quatre hesitantly probed, half afraid he would be the next victim if he said more.

"This is only the first day of school and you're already talking about murder Which part of blending in, do you not understand?"

"This ain't murder. It's part of removing obstacles." Came the arrogant reply.

"Then remove it by some other means."

"Or you'll do what?" Wufei mocked, feeling rather smug.

Grabbing her luggage, Jess zipped open the top and pulled out a small penknife. Then letting each of them have a good eyeful of the object, she answered: "Or we'll follow my method. Castration."

On seeing the shiny surface of the penknife, the sweet smile that accompanied the answer on the girl's face, none of the people doubted her abilities then. Involuntary, each boy moved back, each trying his best to move as inconspicuous as possible.

"Ok, Heeeeeelen," Duo caught himself at the last minute, "has a bad idea. Quatre?"

The blond gave him a most remorse look and shook his head.

"I haven't given it much thought except we could cut my hair, use it as rope and send him gift wrap to Doctor J for brain washing?" there was element of hopefulness that made Jess irritated.

"Rejected!" she announced, turning her head and giving him a rather evil look. Ignoring the freaked face he showed when he saw her tighten her grip on the penknife.

Then Duo pulled out a small black box, the size of a baseball, with two metal rods protruding from it.

"I wasn't really gonna bring this out as it hasn't been tested yet. But since this might be the last resort . . ."

"What does that do?" Jess asked immediately, eyeing the object suspiciously. With Duo, anything innocent looking was always suspiciously dangerous.

"It's an electric stun gun. It's made in the year 2000 and should hardly do much than shocked people into temporary paralysis. Problem is that I've been trying to trig up its power without much waste of batteries and the last test subject is in a coma."

Twack!

The other slim, beaded slipper flew into Duo face with astounding accuracy. On seeing this for the second time, Quatre pulled his luggage close, for the last object the girl could hurl was definitely dangerous.

"Put that away! Now!" the girl commanded, never taking her eyes off him till the device was safely pocketed.

"Why? What's wrong with this? At least the person will still be alive."

"You know what we call coma in our world?" Jess shot back, letting go of her simmering frustrations at the boys' inability to comprehend what was morally wrong and abnormally ruthless in dealing with obstacles. "It's called the living death. And there have been cases in my world where people would rather have their life support pulled out than go on living this kind of half life."

"So what do we do?" Quatre asked, lapsing back into gloom.

"Good question. How are you all going to finish me off?" A familiar female voice asked from behind the partition.

The curtain flew back and revealed Sally, in doctor's uniform and a clipboard in one hand.

"Sally!" all the boys squealed, jumping to their feet and rushing forward, relief and joy flooding in all at once. As if reading their thoughts, she quickly held out both hands, palm outwards, least they all decided to hug her for joy.

"Easy, easy," she said good-naturedly, and noticing Jess, she gently addressed her: "You can put that away now. You did good in the way you didn't want innocent civilians to get hurt."

When the girl continued to remain quiet and still, Sally strode forward and patted the girl's bowed head.

"Come on," she added in when the girl continued to look down as she kept the penknife in the luggage. "Don't tell me you really want them to castrate them?"

"You sure you want the truth, woman?" Wufei asked rhetorically, folding his arms and forgetting the effect it had on his image. "Tonight, I won't sleep easy."

"Oh, don't be so sure," retorted Sally, for unknown to the boys, she spotted two wet spots suddenly appearing on the girl's skirt. "I don't think that's what she's thinking. Come Jess, get up."

And she watched as the girl slowly got to her feet, face still facing down, her newly cut fringe falling forward to cover her eyes.

"Now look at me."

Slowly the girl lifted her face to reveal two streams of tears flowing down her cheeks.

"Geh!" Wufei exclaimed, taking a step back. "I definitely didn't do anything to her!" But his explanation was ignored by both girls.

"Really," Sally whispered, taking out her hankie and wiping Jess's eyes and cheeks dry. "Is that all you're capable of? I know it must be a big switch of environment for you over here, but you have to be strong to survive it."

"Oh Sally!" And she burst into another flood of tears before engulfing the older lady into a hug. "I was so scared when they talked like that!"

"There, there. It's over now," came the understanding reply and with it, a comforting pat on the back. And she allowed the young girl to sob into her shoulder till her eyes were dry.