Narrator: After Colony 199: With the pilots all having worked for RTL, Superior being dead, and the authorities closing in on the rest of RTL's places, it didn't make much sense to be cautious of something as simple air ducts while on route to an important meeting. A meeting that would probably draw several tears and misfortune. Yet, everyone finds themselves right at the base of the Sank Kingdom, not even thinking about how they got there. They would continue to do things on instinctive impulse, each leading their own way down paths.

But perhaps, the path is not what they actually believe it to be.

Until the bold goes away, do not trust anything you read. This is zero system manipulation.

The Previous Site of the Sank Institute in the Previously owned Sank Kingdom

Special permission didn't take long to get granted once she asked for it. Others still remembered what she had done that day when she dissolved that kingdom.

Duo should have been there by himself, but it looked like he had brought the imposter Hilde after all. When they arrived, Relena wasted no time to learn at least part of the truth. Hilde didn't act weird in the test, like it was completely normal. Except, the results? Showed the truth.

Wufei was there, wearing a long white robe he hadn't worn in a very long time. He was probably expecting news of death.

Quatre also dressed nicely, keeping his head down and his eyes closed. Steeling himself for bad news.

Milliardo just stared straight ahead at her, yet his eyes felt more vacant.

Crystalia was on the other side of Heero, as dedicated as ever, holding Sophia while Heero held Sora. Relena would switch with her later but she would take the lead for this part. "Thank you everyone for meeting with us. I wish it had been on better terms."

"Yeah, I was expecting like a marriage invitation by now," Duo teased her. It was his way of dealing with stress and anxiety. Not knowing why he was called, when he just got 'Hilde Schbeiker' back not too long ago.

"Duo," the fake Hilde scolded him lightly.

"We invited you all as just friends. This is not involved with the preventers, colonies, the Phillips family, colony successors or any projects. Just, as people. As friends," she urged each of them.

Now, to begin. "Authorities have been given information in a similar way as the tablet with RTL," she said. "It has all the people involved with BS, BE, JC, and so much more. As of now? They are all being arrested, tried, and imprisoned in much the same way as what happened to RTL." She raised her head higher. "Crystalia's zero system memories had been too fuzzed up to understand what was going on. Before anyone cries foul of her, I am to blame too. I couldn't make sense of many things correctly. However you may feel, know that she is the only reason my children and I stand here today. Instead of working with Superior, who had still been alive, she helped us try to wreck this plan before it started. Unfortunately, a little girl was in need of help, and it brought too much attention to the wrong area for it to work."

"Hey, are you talking about the little girl I saved not too long ago?" Duo asked. He moved slightly. The girl was still with him? "Need to drop off a delivery to you by the way."

"Yes. That's okay. Events happen that can't be planned," Relena said to him.

"Sorry." From Heero, that carried a lot of weight. "You all know the zero system wasn't used much anymore. All the RTL places were just dying, barely communicating much."

Heero went on. "We have found information on them. They don't know you anymore, or they have faded memories but can't put together who you were. The zero system wasn't used enough to destroy their character, but it took their memories."

"I understand that," Quatre spoke. "Please just tell us what happened."

"Just tell us," Wufei added, "are they dead or not? Don't drag this out like some official conference meeting."

"Superior was still alive," Heero continued. "She had her own extreme wealth before RTL and she used it to keep another end going on away from everyone's eyes."

Relena stood right beside the possibly fake Hilde. Results hadn't come back yet that soon, but with the way it all went? "Come with me."

"Where do you think you are taking her?" Duo called her out. "Hilde is always by my side. Even for hours and hours of boredom."

Relena bowed toward him. "I am sorry. I need to speak to her."

"A big old meeting to come see you, and you want to speak to just her?" Duo was still causing problems.

"Duo Maxwell, it's Relena Dorlain, just let her go," Wufei said irritated. "Let this continue so we can move on with our lives."

Relena brought her away from the prying eyes, having Crystalia watch her a small distance away. She returned to the front with her daughter. Heero was done, and that was fine. She squeezed his hand and continued. "The women have forgotten you, and unfortunately, they are on the run due to the horrific crimes committed in the past, that they believe are theirs."

She heard Quatre slightly make a sound, still steeling himself for the news.

"Superior never gave up on Plan A," Relena continued until Duo interrupted again.

"There's no way Hilde is just going to stand back there with that woman," Duo said. He was heading toward the back.

"Duo." Heero moved in front of him. "Stay back. We'll get to her."

"Maybe I don't want to stay back."

"Duo Maxwell, knock it off!" Wufei yelled.

"Duo," Heero repeated. "It's not Hilde." He shoved a copy of the test results to him. "We checked her as soon as you arrived yesterday. We have the evidence. You've been tricked into believing it was her. Hilde has been gone for more than three months."

Duo stared at the results. "Uh? But? No, this isn't possible."

"Yeah!" The fake Hilde insisted. She hadn't been far enough. "I'm Hilde, I'm not a fake! No one could ever fake me."

"The zero system is good at manipulating the brain. She probably studied Hilde to replace her if she hated you enough to have surgery to look like her," Heero told him, ignoring the fake Hilde. "Think about it, Duo. The results are right there."

"When?" Duo looked absolutely lost as the fake Hilde tried to insist it wasn't true. The zero system in the junkyward was too hard on her. "Look, she got a little fuzzed up after the zero system. It fuzzes people up. She told me that before today too. She's just a little messed up, but she's Hilde."

"The zero system does a lot of things, but it doesn't fake DNA test results," Heero told him.

"Well it has to, because this isn't right!" Duo yelled back at him.

"Believe what you want." Heero grabbed the copy of the test results. "Let's continue with the meeting. Relena?"

Relena continued. "As I was saying, Superior never gave up on Plan A. Records indicate they kept trying over and over to get everyone pregnant to complete their revenge. The guaranteed way didn't work, and they switched fertility drugs for the women they could not get pregnant easily. They eventually got it, but Hilde Schbeiker in particular didn't go the full nine months. They were premature, but okay."

"No." The sound from Duo was so remorseful. He shook his head. He was starting to get it. "No."

"Comparative blood matches will show you the truth," Relena added. "She is not Hilde Schbeiker."

"She's got soldier right on her arm," Duo said weakly.

"She could have started as a plant, or she could have been brainwashed into believing she was Hilde," Heero pointed out. "Relena said she didn't react in any negative way to the testing."

"But . . . the zero system. Deathscythe."

"Crystalia didn't know. Most likely, they switched her out at the zero system," Heero said. "Superior didn't want to give up the chance of a winning chip, so they put in a substitute. They only needed the data to see how everyone else would handle the gundam control system. No need to risk the real thing."

Duo rubbed back his hair, along the top of his braid all the way down. "No, no, no, no." He let go at the end of his braid. "No, this is not happening!"

Relena waited for Duo's wave to subside until he just started to shake and not yell anymore. "Everyone. Superior made the experiments continue to run. I'm sorry. Every single one of you has a child, children, or something on the way soon."

"RTL won," Heero said. "It may almost be dead, but it won."

"It won, against everyone? Children on the way?" Milliardo asked. "This isn't possible."

"We checked out the data before we were blocked off by authorities. Mei-Lin is two months pregnant," Relena said to Wufei. "Her true self has been with you the whole time, until she was finally kidnapped."

She looked toward Milliardo. "From what we can tell, Noin was replaced with someone who looked like her shortly after RTL had been discovered. She is six months with quadruplets expected." Millardo was quiet. "The one who came was only a con. She was tested. The children will be here soon."

Relena continued onward to Quatre. "Dorothy has lost all knowledge of who she had been. The vagueness of what she could and couldn't remember is completely gone."

She went over toward Duo. Poor man was still shaking. She placed her hand supportively on his shoulder. "She had triplets not more than a month ago-"

"Yeah, I know, I don't need details. I saw them."

"Alec was also Trowa's," Heero spoke up. "They didn't want to waste money making Middie Une pregnant again, so they checked it."

"How do we get them back?" Quatre asked. "What's the plan? What are we doing?"

"Superior has left what is left of her wealth into six accounts," Relena told him. "The extra was probably for me. At some point, they will meet up with someone to activate them. The women can only have so much at a time. The more they extract, the faster it goes. They will live fine with the children, nothing will happen to them at all, until it runs out."

"Then they will take the revenge," Heero stated.

Relena held out cards. "I'm not callous enough to say it out loud. Here are the cards for what they want to happen, just in case it can provide you a clue in the future." She handed them out to everyone.

"I was right there." Duo was still stuck in his own head as he took the card. "I mean, how could she ever be? She was there for so much longer. Can't have triplets in two months and they are a whole month old. I didn't want to think, because she'd have to have been gone for, so I . . . she was so jittery. So unlike my gungho Hilde."

"The zero system, as a whole, is soul crushing," Heero said to Duo. "There's a good chance the woman still hollering about being Hilde, does believe she is Hilde, even with the evidence. These aren't cute rip-offs. They were all trained by the zero system itself in their goals."

"If Superior owned the colonies, that made her a big enough name, we can definitely trace those accounts," Quatre countered. "We need to do everything we can to trace those accounts!"

"I already located them," Heero said to them. "Unless they treat them like personal cards for every purchase, I wouldn't lay back and wait for when it's convenient. They can take a large amount off once a year, and so much each month. We don't know how comfortable or trusting they will be of these cards. Get to them as soon as there is activity. The more they take off at once, the more likely they'll wait years to take more "

Yes, all of them were starting to talk and moan. Each one, including her brother. "One at a time, please."

"We can't just leave this in terrorist's hands!" Milliardo demanded. "We must do something!"

"Heero is tracking the secret accounts we found. Everything else of hers has been spotted and stopped by authorities," Relena stated. "I believe she blew the whistle on everyone."

"Put more on the case, this is sheer terrorism, Relena!" Milliardo was not giving up. "Why are we even discussing this out here?"

"The women are not speaking up," Relena said to him. "They don't know they are innocent, and why should they? They will all hide like they are guilty. No one has walked away from their involvement in anyone associated with RTL once found. They've been arrested, tried, and imprisoned."

"There is a countdown, that is literally a bomb," Millardo said again. "We should be able to get someone to take action."

"Who?" Heero had to speak up. "People fought wars, lost thousands of lives, strategized battle plans that were designed for success at the cost of lives. Those people were pardoned. Even we walked away free. This isn't war. As much as it may hurt, it's only a missing persons."

"There is a countdown before something happens, that can be showed to take action to save lives," Milliardo said again.

"To prove that, we would have to share the accounts, and risk the authorities making it there before us," Relena repeated.

"DNA testing will clear their name," Wufei said. "Why aren't we letting authorities like the preventers handle this?"

"They have lists of all their activities. If they are found to be someone else? It'll get nasty," Heero warned them. "They'll find their prints in activity they were involved in. A few fingerprints in their duties and instead of headlines saying an innocent was arrested by mistaken identity, they just caught an ex-preventer who worked for RTL."

"The best approach is just to find them. No one will tie them to any crimes, if they don't have a reason to," Relena said. "Does this make sense to everyone?"

"How do we know this is really their trap?" Wufei asked. "The accounts could be fake, something they are using for something else to hurt us. This could all be a fake too!"

"It could be," Heero said.

"It most likely isn't," Relena said.

"But it could be. It was made by an insane genius, which bordered closer on the insane at the end," Heero said back to her. "Everyone should be tested to know for sure."

"Superior was planning on killing Trowa, Heero, so she exposed everything, revelling in the moment," Relena countered again.

"Her mistake gave us her real identity, which does let us watch these accounts," Heero told them. "I agree with that. If I were 100% positive I wouldn't have been checking it out, I would have called everyone to take action." Heero looked back at everyone again. "If I were all of you, I would start running my own investigations, locating anyone that matches their description, find the ones using the cards, and getting at least a fingerprint."

"Sure," Duo muttered. "Sure. Nobody wants to help. Nobody wanted to help before, why would they help now? They would much rather get evidence and put them away. Just guinea pigs. Scapegoats. Not like they were important to the world."

"To the world, no, to you, yes," Heero said. "Crystalia says it best. RTL is a lit match. It only burns where it needs too and it burns hard."

"If I was brazen enough to say no to all the colonists and my sisters, knock everyone away and sell it all from beneath their feet? Then maybe I would stand a chance of finding them very quickly by bribing officials and getting hurried exams," Quatre spoke. "It doesn't matter how much I have, I could never do that!" He touched his head. "Even if I did possess a heart so cold, I wouldn't have any guarantee it would work. I've also got a ton more kids to deal with. They need homes, even if RTL ended, I still have my duties. I still know where the others are at. I still have to help."

"It's almost over," Heero said as he readjusted Sora again. "The authorities will not allow you to help much longer."

"If this is the truth, and this is no trick? They won against me," Wufei cut in. "They won against Milliardo Peacecraft. They won against Quatre. They won against Duo. They almost completely took out Trowa to his total defeat." He bowed toward Heero. "They never won against you. Relena Dorlain is still Relena Dorlain."

Oh. Relena really didn't want it to flip into this again. Please someone change the subject? Heero took the moment to use the best things that Crystalia could provide to save her. As unfair as the advantages were, they freed her, and she was glad of it. They may have all felt a little bitter inside, but she had tried to smoothe it over by inviting them to come see them.

It only served to make things worse. They never said anything bad, but it was in their tone. It was in their isolation from him.

"He's teething, isn't he?" Quatre asked Heero, finally changing the subject. "He bit your finger too hard, and he keeps chasing it. You look a lot more used to taking care of them, Heero. I'll bet you are a great father."

Heero didn't know how to answer. Relena knew he wouldn't know how to answer. Heero was a very good father, and he had taken good care of all of them. With RTL's threats weakened from Crystalia, he was able to spend time with Sophia and Sora.

Now wasn't the time Heero wanted to talk about them though, even if it was brought up. In a moment, he would eventually just say-

"Thanks."

"Noin is a Preventer, it might give us some leeway to get more help," Milliardo said. "It was all lies that those tasks would give them back."

"Crystalia didn't mean for it to be, and she was no longer in charge. Of the two she thought had been in charge, one had been murdered by the other. If this had not happened, it would have all been resolved when RTL ended. She had no way of knowing about Superior." Relena had to defend her.

"But she miraculously isn't facing any charges?" Milliardo asked.

"Right. The authorities don't know about her, and they don't need to know about her," Heero threatened him. "Which is the only way you're going to save the others without incarcerating them. Find them individually, and get them out. Assume until a test says otherwise, they could be your real friends."

"I was on task seventy anyway," Quatre said glumly. "I was trying. What about what we did in RTL?"

"The extortion and proof is clear. You are not involved in any crimes," Relena told them. "The others had no extortion against them. They had payment, shelter, and supplies. That is what the law sees."

"Well, try to talk to them?" Quatre reasoned.

"I have been. I really have been," Relena stressed. "When STL fell, so much embarrassment and shame fell on so many. The fact such large figures were manipulated has created a witch hunt to find and convict everyone." Her fists trembled. "Everyone, even if they were unaware of everything involved."

She felt Heero grasp onto her fist.

"Not everyone in every organization of theirs even knew what was going on. Relena has been trying to prove orphanage workers, including janitors, were unaware of the crimes in the buildings. They are all still in jail. There is no evidence to find them guilty, but there's no evidence to find them not guilty. It's been a battle. You don't want to get them in this situation."

It was cruel. They were doing everything to block her path. Like a janitor would even know! And now, even more side corporations not understanding the involvement were getting involved.

"Nobody cares about innocent people getting used," Heero said. "They are focusing on arresting, stopping, saving the people that were involved which was hundreds of thousands. You've all seen the entire mess yourselves. Nobody cares about the problems of five individual women." he scoffed. "We were just fine again because the public know us as the gundam pilots. We're apparently heroes to a lot of people. Such strong evidence of their evil only worked in our favor."

"Lit match," Crystalia said. "RTL is a lit match. It only burns where it needs too. It burns hard."

"I already pulled what I could before everything went nuts," Heero told them. "I sent you downloads of all the profiles involved. They could have been in any branch. Most of RTL is gone. STL were never hiding, but a huge sum are still going to jail or have smear campaigns against them. That leaves about twenty six organizations left, some direct and indirect only with funding from Crystalia or Superior. So? There are about 245,291 possible profiles."

"It does little to narrow down the search," Milliardo insisted. "I need to get started on this. If the full release of everyone involved also has surgical data, then it's a start. Finding anyone that looked like Noin, tracing the profiles family and friends or interests, it might lead to something. Without troubling Noin . . . during her vacation time."

"245,291," Quatre repeated. "Dorothy could be one of 245,291 people now running or possibly arrested."

"Right. So. If anyone asks, they are just on vacation," Heero agreed with Milliardo.

"Nah. They aren't on vacation. They just visited your local fast food joint," Duo sneered.

What?

Duo went straight up to Heero. "Can I punch you, Heero Yuy?"

"No," Heero said, "not without good reason."

"I did something else besides save a little girl that day, I also lost my wallet. Someone found it for me. She swore she wasn't Hilde, and I accepted when I saw her triplets. Still, she stayed pleasant. So, when all hell broke loose, they took the kid. As you can see?" He gestured to the little girl. "She trusted me enough, to return her to her mom."

"You met with her yesterday?" Relena said surprised.

"Yeah. Yeah, I did, and I took her phone full of all of her friends numbers. You could have found them under MB for Momma Bears before I ditched it in a random dumpster!"

"We had no way of knowing that," Heero said. "You should have said something. Do you have something with a straight fingerprint?"

"Their numbers are on there?" Quatre moved right to Duo's side. "Whose is whose? Tell me where the random dumpster is, I'll go find it! Even just the city, Duo!"

"I don't know, I just have her number and Middie's on a napkin. Maybe I can ask her today when I fix her account card like I promised." Duo gave Heero a push. "One more day late and you would have been sorry. 245,000 times sorry! Any suspicions, whether confirmed or not should be shared from this day forward between us! Otherwise, we might just lose something important in the process. Agreed?"

"Okay," Heero agreed. "You can punch me."

"Duo, you still have a-"

Heero didn't fall to the ground or react much as he was punched. "How we handle this next, depends on how you handle Hilde Schbeiker. You probably want to deal with the imposter first."

"Yeah. I'm sure, because she isn't just going to bring her dearest friends to me." Duo looked bad. "It took some persuasion to even meet or trust me with this. I don't want to do this."

"The imposter first," Heero insisted. "Then we'll discuss the best strategy with the Momma Bears."