I am so glad you guys find Jinja's parents interesting, I'm usually horrible with villains. Anyway, please enjoy!

OoOoOo

She screamed. She screamed until her throat hurt. She screamed herself raw, hoping that someone, anyone would come to her aid. Alas, no one heard such screams. No one even knew of her existence. She was alone. She'd always be alone. There was no one to come rescue her, to save her from her own personal hell. She had no salvation from this nightmare.

But maybe... maybe she didn't need anyone to save her. Maybe, just maybe, she could save herself.

Jinja woke up to an aching in her throat and gave a little cough in response. Well, damn. Had she been screaming in her sleep? That's never happened before. Well, it had. Back when she had first escaped. Since then, the nightmares had been under control. Or, she thought they had. Maybe being around her parents had triggered something inside her.

She sighed and turned her head to the side, feeling her heart drop slightly as she noticed Chase wasn't there. Jinja immediately scolded herself for that. She couldn't expect him to stay with her every night now that she was conscious, that would be incredibly selfish of her. Still, she couldn't help but let disappointment wash over her at the sight of the empty chair.

"Oh, you're awake."

Jinja's eyes glanced at the door and she felt her heart flutter. "Chase," she acknowledged. "I thought you went to your own room."

Chase grinned. "Sorry, Jin, can't get rid of me that easily." He held out a bag towards her. "I brought you breakfast."

Jinja took the bag, smiling lightly. "Chase, you really didn't have to do that."

Chase shrugged. "I wanted to," he replied simply.

Jinja felt herself blush, but scolded herself once again. He's just being nice, Jinja. There's no way he'd interested in you like that. Still, she couldn't help but acknowledge the fact that the cafeteria was all the way on the other side of the building. "Well, thank you anyway," she said gratefully. She took a warm container out of the bag to reveal oatmeal with various fruit in it. "No one knows me better than you, huh?"

Chase grinned. "Guilty," he admitted. "The doctor said you'd be able to check out soon, right? You excited about that?"

Jinja shrugged. "I guess."

Chase regarded her strangely, that wasn't like the girl he knew at all. "Jin, a few days ago, you couldn't wait to get out of here," he recalled. "Why the sudden mood change?"

"I don't know." She honestly didn't.

Taking a chance, Chase took her smaller hand in his. "Hey, what's wrong?" he asked gently.

Jinja tensed at the sudden contact, but relaxed. "I guess... I'm just worried," she confessed. "I spent years running from my parents, you know? But now they know where I am."

Realization flashed in Chases eyes. "You're scared."

Jinja looked at him in shock. "What? No." She giggled nervously. "Of course not. I'm not scared of anything." Liar, the voice from before sounded in her head. Didn't we just go over this?

Chase smiled slightly at her. "Yes, you are," he insisted. "but that's okay. Everyone's afraid sometimes. Jinja, even me."

Jinja crossed her arms. "Well, not me." Despite this, she laughed. "Damn, Chase, when did you get so smart?"

Chase grinned once again. "I think you're rubbing off on me."

OoOoOo

A few days later, Jinja was released from the medical ward. She was still on antibiotics and pain killers, but she mostly only used the former. And she only used those because they were mandatory. She didn't particularly care for pills. At least, not anymore. On a brighter note, she found that Chase was right, she was happy to be released. She'd never been too fond of hospitals.

Jinja was still barred from missions, however, much to her dismay. Though, ever since Eklipse and Charlemagne were locked up, there wasn't much Monsuno activity anyway, so she supposed she wasn't really missing out.

The days she spent on leave, she was mostly with Joyce. The two had been catching up on all the years they missed with each other. Jinja would recount the adventures as a part of Team Core-Tech and Joyce would listen patiently. This went on for a few days before Jinja decided to change it up. "Hey, Joyce?" she asked one day as the two sat in the cafeteria.

"Yes, love?"

Jinja tilted her head to the side. "How did you end up working for my parents anyway?" she questioned.

Joyce's blue eyes looked askance before she answered, "I was about sixteen when I found myself pregnant. I desperately needed money and your parents offered me a job." The way she spat out 'parents' sent shivers down Jinja's spine, but she figured it was due to the fact that they weren't really parents towards her. "As you know, they are very wealthy, so I took it."

Jinja raised an eyebrow. "And the baby?" she inquired. "What happened to it?"

Joyce lowered her head. "I lost it."

Jinja suddenly felt guilty for asking. "I'm sorry," she uttered gently. "I shouldn't have asked."

Joyce gave her a sad smile. "It's alright, darling." But when Jinja looked into the woman's eyes, she noticed a few crucial details. She wouldn't meet Jinja's eyes and her hands were fidgeting.

She was lying.

OoOoOo

"Jinja, are you sure?" asked Chase when Jinja explained everything to him. She seemed tense, a bit jumpy as well. This wasn't like her at all. Chase gently grabbed her shoulders, trying to stop her pacing. "Maybe you misread her? I mean, it's happened before, right? Why would Joyce lie about something like that?" He didn't want to upset her even more, so he was treading carefully.

Jinja whipped around to face him, stopping in her tracks. "Chase Suno, the last time I read someone wrong was when we were sixteen," she said sternly. "I know when people are lying. We've been tricked so many times, I've started studying people's faces. I know when someone's lying. And I spent ten years with Joyce, I definitely know when she's lying."

Chase seemed to consider this. "Maybe she just doesn't want to talk about it," he suggested. "It could be, like, really painful or something."

"I guess you're right..." Jinja shook her head, berating herself for her doubts about the woman. "Joyce was the first person I ever trusted, I won't change that now."

Chase nodded in understanding. "How are you feeling?" he asked, changing the subject.

Jinja tilted her head to the side. "My side still hurts a bit, but other than that, I'm fine," she answered, then smirked. "How are things of the field? Are you getting your asses kicked without me?"

Chase smiled at her obvious eagerness to get back in the fray. "Quiet," he responded. "We stopped a couple of dealings, but that's pretty much it. We also stopped some kids from getting into it. Don't know how they got cores, they had no idea what they were doing."

Jinja giggled. "That sounds familiar," she chimed.

Chase shrugged, unfazed. "Hey, we didn't have a choice."

Jinja hummed in thought. "True," she agreed. "but I wonder where these people are getting cores. We shut Eklipse and all those other guys down. What color were they?"

"That's the thing," said Chase. "they were all different colors. Some were red, others were orange. I even saw some green ones. The green ones are being brought in for testing."

"But no blue ones?"

Chase shook his head. "No blue ones," he confirmed.

"Which means that they weren't made by Core-Tech," continued Jinja. "Those green ones sound troubling."

"From what I've seen, they're unstable," Chase told her. "We have no idea where we came from or who made them."

Jinja bit her lip, lost in her thinking. Who besides STORM and Eklipse would have the money and the resources to create cores let alone new ones? "I'll look over the file tonight," she said. "You need someone to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes and it'll give me something to do around here." She smiled. "Besides, I scored the highest on that part of the testing."

Chase vaguely recalled the mental and physical tests the five of them took upon their admittance to STORM. He himself had the best leading skills, Bren had the highest technology score, Beyal knew the most about herbs and plants, Dax's fighting was the best, and Jinja excelled on the problem solving and detective work parts. "That's right, you did. I'll give it to you tonight."

Jinja smiled at him and glanced at the clock. "Crag, I have to go. See you, Chase!" She waved at her friend and ran off.

Chase waved back. "Bye Jin..." He couldn't help the goofy grinned that adorned his face as she left.

OoOoOo

Jinja sipped her coffee as her eyes scanned the file later that night. She was actually glad for this, even if it wasn't on the field. It preoccupied her and took her mind off the pain. Still, she was having a difficult time finding what she needed to find. All the file said was that a couple of kids were fooling around with green cores and that certain people were selling them on the street.

She groaned, tangling her hand in her hair. There was literally almost no information to go on, why did she think she could do any better than the rest of Team Core-Teach and STORM Strike Squad put together? Sighing, Jinja closed her eyes and opened them again, glancing back at the file. She grinned when she saw a shadow in the corner of one of the pictures taken.

Apparently, it was a picture of the kid actually being sold the core. There was a figure a little ways from the kid and she brought it up on the computer. "Computer, enhance image," instructed Jinja. "Now, enlighten." It didn't do much, but she was able to bring up a corner of the man's face. All she could tell was that he was tall with pale skin and was smirking.

She gasped as she realized that she knew that smirk. It was a smirk she had feared all her life. It was a smirk that haunted her dreams every night. It was a smirk she never wanted to see again.

It was the smirk of her father.

She stared at the picture for a moment before shooting up and taking off down the hall. "CHASE!" she shrieked as she ran towards his room.

OoOoOo

"Jin, are you sure?" asked Chase. She had barged into at four in the morning, basically shouting about the breakthrough she'd made.

Jinja nodded. "I'm positive," she insisted firmly. Maybe she was being a little high-strung here, but she knew what she was talking about. As a STORM elite, they had to trust her word. "Chase, I had too look at that smirk for eleven years. I still see that smirk in my nightmares. That is Dr. Byron Faustus. He's our new dealer." She peered at him expectantly. "You trust me, right?"

"Of course I do," Chase assured her. "but we have to be absolutely sure before we go barging on this guy's door."

"The security feed from the time they visited," said Jinja suddenly. "We can compare the faces." She couldn't contain her excitement. Finally, those bastards would go down and pay for the harm they've caused everyone. Finally, she could go to bed knowing she was safe from them forever.

Chase nodded. "Sounds good," he agreed. "Let's go."

OoOoOo

The two got to the security room and set the footage to the date Jinja woke up in the medical wing. As soon as two heads of jet black hair walking up to the receptionist and ask for her name. After they did this, both the man and woman turned around and Jinja let out a high pitched yelp. It was the first time she had seen their faces anywhere but her nightmares in eight years.

She had remembered them both down to the nose. Her mother's cold, piercing green eyes, her father's twisted, mental smirk. What had she been thinking? She wasn't ready to see their faces, she'd barely been ready to hear their voices! Jinja tried taking deep breaths to calm herself, but everything seemed to be closing in on her. It felt like there was an elephant crushing her chest.

She couldn't breathe.

"Jin? Jinja!"

Jinja snapped out of her trance and turned to face Chase who had his hands on her shoulders. "What?"

Chase sighed in relief. "You freaked on me," he told her. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Jinja assured him. "I'm fine. I just-" She took a deep breath. "I just wasn't expecting to see their faces so soon."

Chase nodded in understanding. "Why don't we bring up the picture you saw?" he suggested.

Jinja nodded and brought it up on the computer. "It's the same," she stated. "My father is the new core dealer."

OoOoOo

Alright, be honest, how many of you saw that coming? Well, let me just say that's not the true mystery of this story. I was going to reveal it here, but I think I'll wait... Anyway, please review!