Chapter 4: Reveling the past

"What the hell is going on here?" an annoyed Wufei asked Duo. "I was just greeted, in German, I think, by some hyper-active girl with black hair."

Wufei caught Duo glancing at both Heero and the strange girl, before he broke out into hysterical laughter. Wufei tried to get Duo to talk, but everything he said only seemed to set Duo off again. Duo was weird, but not this weird. Wufei wondered why the hell he was even here.

Wufei stormed into the kitchen. Stupid Duo, he thought, couldn't give a strait answer to save his life!

"Nice to see you again," Trowa greeted Wufei with a smile. Trowa's smiles were not often seen, he gave them only when greeting people he hadn't seen in awhile. Wufei and Trowa hadn't seen each other in over a year.

In the kitchen with Trowa also stood Quatre and Relena. Wufei mumbled a greeting, but before he could begin to question any of them, Heero walked in.

"Good, we're all here," he said seeing Wufei. "We're going to meet down in the conference room, so I suggest you start moving that way."

"Ja," the black haired girl said sticking her head in, "geht dahin!"

Stupid people, speaking stupid languages that I don't understand! Wufei thought as he walked down the hall. It didn't seem to bother anyone else, but it really irked Wufei.

Once everyone was settled, (Heero sat at the head of the table next to the mystery girl, and Duo stood in the back behind Wufei. Everyone else was where they felt like being.) Heero began the briefing.

"Guys," He started, "I think we have a big problem to take care of."

"What kind of problem?" Quatre questioned.

"First of all, I should begin by telling you that Doctor J, Instructor H, Master O, Doctor S, and Professor G are still alive, and they may be up to something."

"But, they were blown up! What do you mean they're still alive?" Trowa asked, confused.

"They survived," Heero said in his usual emotionless way. "J, contacted me shortly after the original war ended. They wanted help relocating to an abandoned resource satellite. I agreed to help."

"Is that why you up and disappeared for 6 months?" Quatre interrupted to question.

"Yeah," Heero confirmed, avoiding everyone else's quizzing eyes. "They wanted their fate kept confidential. Naturally, I obliged. Shortly after the Mariemaia incident, they contacted me again. They wished to house the Gundams with them. I informed them that the Gundams had been destroyed, as they were no longer needed. They were not upset by this however, and simply stated that the Gundams could easily be rebuilt."

"Didn't that worry you at all?" Trowa questioned.

Heero responded in his same unemotional soldier voice. "Not at all, they told me they would contact me back with information, and they never did."

Wufei could hardly stand to listen to the stupidity. This was yet another incident that would be added to his list as to why Heero was incompetent. "Let me guess," he snapped sarcastically, "now you think you may have been wrong?"

"I know I was wrong." Heero remained unstirred. "That is where Jade comes in."

"And who is Jade?" Wufei sneered.

Laughter came from behind Wufei. As he turned around he saw Duo in hysterics. In between gasps for air Duo said, "You'll...never...believe...this..." After Heero shot Duo a dirty look, Duo calmed down.

"So who is she?" Wufei repeated.

"She's my sister."

"What!" everyone, with the exception of Duo, yelled.

"She also owns a zero chip." Heero continued, ignoring everyone's dismayed looks.

After recollecting himself Quatre questioned, "So she actually has a zero chip attached to her spine? I didn't think they were safe."

"They're not." Heero confirmed.

"Wait a second, what's a zero chip?" Trowa asked, regaining his self and slowing everyone down.

"I personally came across it with the plans for the Wing Zero," Quatre explained. "To the best of my knowledge, basically the zero chip is a small microchip attached to your spine, behind your shoulder blades. It basically acts as a built in Zero system."

"And J has the on/off switch." Heero finished explaining. "Right now it's on, and that means he's working with it again. He's up to something."

"So let's just remove the chip." Wufei suggested. It didn't seem like that big of a deal. Why would you need everyone's help for that?

"It's not that simple," Heero reminded him. "The chip literally fuses to the spine. Removing it could mean paralysis."

Even Wufei was stumped by the situation at hand. "So are we confronting the scientists?" he asked.

"Unfortunately," Heero sighed finally showing some flicker of emotion, "I think we'll have to."

A strong silence came over the group, as everyone was absorbed in their own thoughts.

"But why does she have the chip?" Duo finally asked, voicing most of the group's thoughts.


"But why does she have the chip?" Heero heard Duo ask.

"Because, I'm better than him," Jade smiled, speaking up for the first time.

Great, Heero thought, I guess it all comes out. He looked across the room to the confused faces.

Duo's normally happy eyes stared at Jade in disbelief. Duo was probably the only person in the room who even believed the story so far. Heero didn't know how Duo had found out about his sister already, but he had his suspicions of Jade. He made a mental note to bring it up their next argument.

Trowa looked stony, like he was just taking everything in. Trowa's eyes meet Heero's in a questioning glaze, and for the first time ever, Heero had to break eye contact. There was something about Trowa's eyes today, like they already knew all of Heero's secrets. Heero had made it a point to hide his past from everyone, and even though it was necessary, Heero still wasn't sure how he felt about it all coming out.

Quatre's eyes were hardened in consideration. He still seemed to be pondering the zero chip. It was as if he couldn't wait to get to one of his lab's and begin research on the chip.

Wufei's eyes were the worst of all. His eyes were filled with hate, not for Heero, but for Jade. It was probably only because she was one more person for him to defeat in his quest to be the best, but somehow, Heero couldn't help but feel like he should get between Wufei and Jade, to protect her.

Heero started to look at Relena, but found he couldn't do it. He diverted his gaze back to Jade, who was still smiling a devious smile, but also currently in a staring contest with Wufei. Another glance at Wufei confirmed Heero's suspicion, that Wufei was giving his death glare.

"You're better than Heero?" Quatre asked, on a 10 second delay. Jade just nodded as Quatre turned to Heero.

"I guess I should explain," Heero started. He wanted to be the one that they would finally hear it from. Maybe then they would be more likely to believe him. Everyone around him nodded. "Well," he continued not really knowing where to start," Well I guess I'll start from the beginning. My parents died in 185. They were on their way back to Japan from the colonies. I was 5, and Jade was 3. Jade doesn't remember our parents, in the same way that I can't remember my name."

"How can you not remember your own name?" Wufei sneered.

"It's easy, Trowa will even tell you that. My parents always called me 'kiddo' from what I can remember. Jade always just called me 'bro'. Neither of us remember our last name either, 'Meka' is as fake as Yuy. Anyways, we traveled around for awhile, but times were really tough. We were both really young, and we couldn't survive together. So shortly after her 4th birthday, I left her at an orphanage."

"Wait this doesn't make sense," Duo interrupted, "You told me from the time you were 6 'til you were 8, you stayed with that Odin guy. After that you went through the whole Gundam thing. How could you possibly even remember Jade?"

"I can fill in his story gap here," Jade interjected. Heero nodded towards her to go ahead. "After bro here left me, I only stayed in the orphanage a few weeks." She laughed. "Honestly, I hardly even remember it. I remember one day some older boys of about 10, or so, were making fun of me. Me being me, I lost my temper and sent them to the hospital. Apparently, there were some visitors there that were impressed with my skills. That was how I met up with J, G, S, H, and O. I was the original pilot of Wing Zero, before the five of them split up. They designed the zero system around me."

"Around you?" Quatre questioned.

"Ja," Jade smiled. "But that's another story. We'll get to that later. So anyways, other than the fact that the five scientists split and I went with J, Heero can take back over from here."

Heero nodded to her and continued. "Basically, this all happened while I was training with Odin. After he died, when I was 8, I wandered for a week or two, before I ran into J. Having nothing better to do, I went with him. He was interested in me because of the training I had received from Odin. He was even more amused to learn that Jade, who was already working with him, and I were siblings."

"He was running a regular little orphanage, wasn't he?" Duo muttered under his breath, but no one noticed.

"So what happened?" Trowa asked urging him on.

"Basically, it's like she said. She was better than me. Originally I was just trained as an ordinary soldier. Jade was that pilot, I was just there to take orders, and commit murders. I was the knuckle dragger. It stayed that way too, at least until the end of 193. That's when Jade decided she couldn't stay."

"Why not?" Duo asked, "You had already gone that far."

"Easy," Jade replied without even flinching. "I wanted to feel! I told you the zero system was designed around me right?" There was a general nod from everyone. "Basically, the scientist's noticed that when I would fight, my brain activity was minimal. It was as if I wasn't thinking. This gave them the idea for the zero system. Of course they can't leave well enough alone, so someone, G, I think, got the bright idea to use the system on me, to boost my performance. The only problem was, since I already wouldn't think, the system had no effect on me. Then J, got the brilliant idea for the zero chip."

"But I thought the zero system had no effect on you. Wouldn't the chip be the same way?" Quatre questioned.

"No, the zero chip only doesn't affect me when I'm fighting. I don't think when I'm fighting, but on a day to day basis, the zero chip can drive you insane."

"Which is why they made the remote on/off switch," Heero supplied.

Jade nodded, "Exactly, because being the brilliant scientist's that they are they didn't realize this until after they had installed the chip."

"Did they force you, or did you agree to the chip?" someone asked, Heero wasn't really sure who.

"I decided to take it, but believe me if I had known the consequences, I wouldn't have. They told me it would help me stay focused, to not worry about myself during fights. I figured it would help me to focus my brain waves on anything that Iwanted. In reality the chip shuts down almost all of my nerves. Their definition of 'focused' was to make me unable to feel if I am wounded. It worked, but I hated it."

"So if the chip is back on, you can't feel anything?" Duo asked. He honestly looked troubled by this.

Jade kind of chuckled, as she pulled a pocket knife out of her boot. Heero watched Duo's eyes widen, as Jade slashed her arm without even flinching. There was a moment of silence, as everyone stared, and Jade removed her boots to gain access to her sock. "Exactly," Jade said breaking the silence, and starting to wrap up her arm with a piece of her sock. "J, eventually just kept leaving the chip on, making life for me unbearable. I'm lucky it's only pulsing now, at least I have some time when I can feel normal." She looked down at her arm, "The next time it pulses off, this is going to hurt like hell." A pause. "But, anyways, bro here eventually helped me fake a terrible accident during a training session in space. I then escaped to earth."

"To the best of my knowledge J still thinks she's dead," Heero finished. There was a long pause as everyone seemed to be taking in what they had heard. Suddenly Duo, the clown that he was, started laughing. Heero shot him a glare. This was a serious matter!

"I'm sorry Heero," Duo continued laughing. "I believe everything, I'm just having trouble believing that Jade is your sister."

"What's so unbelievable about that?" Heero snapped.

"Nothing," Duo smiled. It was then that Heero realized what was coming. Another of Duo's 'your momma' jokes. "I just can't believe your momma didn't tell me about this when I was with her last night." Heero opened his mouth to threaten Duo's life, but Jade beat him to the punch.

"Yeah, she told me about that, said it was the shortest 2 seconds of her life." Leave it to Jade to have a comeback for Duo. Heero felt himself shake his head.

"Do you mind?" Wufei snapped. "I want this over with. When do we leave for this research thing?"

Heero started to open his mouth, but Jade was faster, yet again. "Right after a quick trip to Germany. We have to pick up a friend of mine, Odin Lowe."

Heero snapped his head in her direction. "Odin? Wait, my Odin?"

"Yep, I met up with him about a year ago."

Author's note: No reviews in the last 3 chapters at all? Is it that bad? Give me some sort of feedback! I'm happy with the number of hits, but what do you all think?

Andy