Cassandra was very used to being doted on with lots of luxuries, apparently MIND treated it's students well, and Cassandra had in fact run away for some other reason than less than optimal food. She ordered not only every single meal with an expert's style, but also several extremely expensive bottles of wine and exotic drinks. She was seemingly completely unaware of the fact that no one in the group was old enough to drink anything. Cassandra almost ruined the entire operation by offering to test a bottle of Merlot that was so extraordinarily out of anyone's price range that the joke really wasn't that funny.

Duo was baffled at how this tiny girl could possibly act like the eight year old she was in some aspects, then turn around completely and be a rather short adult without any problem. There was one person Duo thought to take this question to, even though he might not live that long afterwards, the knowledge was worth the price.

"Hey Wufei," Duo called one morning in the hotel. "What's the deal with your sister?"

"Which one?" he was putting on his Preventer's jacket, preparing to leave to go do some patrolling of the premises.

"Cassie. That is the only eight year old I've ever seen that can claim to be able to down a straight shot of vodka. And besides that, she's really mature about MIND and important stuff, but still makes Heero turn out the light for her before she goes to sleep. How could you-"

"Possibly be related to the brat?" Wufei frowned. "I don't know, you tell me."

"That wasn't what I was gonna say."

"Then what were you going to say, Maxwell?"

"How could you not worry about her?"

Wufei blinked, turned around and for a moment Duo could've sworn he was going to get hit by a random large object from around the room. "I…"

"She's your sister. You are bound by blood relation to watch out for her, idiot. You have to worry. Duh!"

Wufei zipped up his jacket and folded his arms. He gave Duo a very long glare, of which the braided teen didn't back down from. Eventually Wufei sighed. "Will you ever repeat this?"

"Um…is this a 'under threat of death' situation?"

"More than you can possibly fathom."

"Okay then, I won't tell anyone. Except maybe Cassie, she's gotta realize someday that she has a real brother-"

"Maxwell! No one ever hears it, got that?"

"…Fine."

"Good," Wufei sat down on the bed. "Liana and I, we've been what one might define as 'close' for a very long time. Damn onna, I can't stand her but she always insisted on following me around anyway. She was very good friends with Nataku, right up to when…but anyway, so after that, she started…tagging along."

"Tagging along how?"

Wufei frowned again and closed his onyx eyes, Duo realized with a jolt that this was really hard for him. "Let's just put it this way: during the war, sometimes you were dealing with me, and sometimes you were dealing with her. We look exactly alike; it's only after the war that she started growing her hair out, she has plenty of pairs of contacts, and when she wants to she can copy my…attitude on things…exactly."

"So you mean sometimes we were fighting along side your sister?" Duo laughed. "Oh man, wait until everyone hears this-"

"They are not going to. Really Maxwell, I will kill you. Don't test this, you'll regret it."

"Relax, I was just screwing with your mind."

"Baka. Cassandra was never a part of the Long clan that I related to. She was born to be a diplomat and politician, named outside of the family and everything so she could grow up to help re-assimilate the Long clan with the rest of the colonies. It's unusual for a woman, but our family is being backed into a proverbial corner regarding some of these things. Liana and I were already off fighting the war, although my sister got tired of it really quickly. By the time…it's so hard to remember, maybe by the time White Fang was formed, she decided she knew how the war would end and went and joined MIND. She was fairly disgusted it by all of it, and vowed someday that 'her people' would rise up and teach humanity a real lesson. Mishii and Moiya Tomoyo are good friends of the family, they were happy to let her join. And as added bonus she adopted Cassandra and started training her with MIND as well."

Duo nodded. "How telekinetically capable is your family, anyway?"

"That's a well guarded Long clan secret, if I told you someone would likely hunt you down," Wufei glared. "So do you really want to know?"

"Can you explain it in a way without having to kill me afterwards?"

"Hn. Telekinesis is directly related to how well you can pilot a mobile suit. This isn't a well known fact, but the average human can and will be killed by any MS, the systems are just too advanced for a human body to handle. That's why the war killed so many people, there were more deaths in battle from the suit demanding too much from the pilot than the suit actually being attacked."

"Moiya told me that."

"It's true. For generations the Long clan has prided themselves in being excellent mobile suit pilots. The telekinesis was just what let us do it. We originally funded the organization that later formed into MIND, and I think that Moiya and Mishii might actually be distantly related to me. But the two of them just fall under the extremely broad category of 'friends of the family'. MIND and the Long clan are very deeply allied, I'm bound by honor to be dutiful to that."

"Ah," Duo randomly picked up a pillow on the bed, looking for some chocolates someone might not have eaten yet. "That's all very interesting information, but it doesn't answer my question. Do you worry about Cassie?"

"What's to worry about, she's been able to completely take care of herself since she could walk, it's our clan's way."

"You know what I mean here."

"Oh? The physiological effects? You mean what kind of permanent mental damage this is doing to her?"

"Exactly. No one is supposed to grow up that fast. She's used to concepts that people twice her age have no idea about. You don't worry about that?"

Wufei frowned in extreme seriousness again. He gave Duo another hardened look, but Duo still just grinned benignly until he was sure he was risking his own health. "I suppose it might be good to inform you of this now, since you're going to MIND a little down the road."

"Yeah, I am. Almost forgot about that. Almost at least."

Wufei seemed suddenly very angered by something. "I never joined MIND after the war for a very specific reason. They…they're really kind of brutal to all of their students. And I don't mean physically either, MIND is all about mental training, they train children to become perfect fighting machines mentally. Think what Heero was trained to do; only a thousand times worse. They have to pass all of their tests at 95% or better, any emotion regarding the concept of war and fighting is prohibited, and they actually promote mental instability."

Duo was shocked. "Are you saying they want to drive their students insane?"

"Exactly. It's their…method of elimination. Students are trained in a way that specifically tries to eliminate all fears and excess emotion that they have. That's why the ZERO system is installed on the new gundams, it helps…eradicate certain parts of the brain. If the student can't take it than they aren't trained anymore, and eventually the abilities of the mobile suits out do theirs and they're killed."

"That isn't too nice."

"Yeah. It isn't. The more unbalanced an individual is the easier it is to survive, if certain parts of the brain can be relied on more than others they make a better student. Cassie is just naturally built as the perfect MIND student and Mishii and Moiya know it, that's why she was chosen to pilot Epyon, the gundam with the harshest form of the ZERO system."

Duo blinked. Something very disturbing had just occurred to him. "Heh…Wuffles, I just thought of something."

"Call me that again and I promise I can fix the 'thinking' problem for you."

"What the hell was Heero thinking when he volunteered me for this? I can't handle the ZERO system, I'm…not really as mentally strong a person as Heero, or you, or Trowa, even Quatre. Don't tell him I said that though."

Wufei actually smiled. "Maxwell, you baka, that's what you really think, isn't it? MIND and the Long clan collaborated on a huge research project of all top notch MS pilots during the war. I studied the four of you quite a bit. Heero can only tell because he's your friend, stupid concept really, but it's his choice who he trusts, not mine."

"Okay, now you're over my head."

"Of course. Anyway, the point is that you are the only pilot who might actually survive. There's a reason MIND trains children from a very young age, their minds are very innocent to a lot of concepts and Moiya and Mishii can train them as they wish. You might hate me for this but it's true, your mind is probably the least adjusted to war out of all of us."

"Hey, I've seen as bad as you, if not worse."

"Maybe so, but you feel worse about it than anyone. Even Quatre has a side to him that's brought out by the ZERO system, it's impervious to war."

"Oh…I don't get it."

"You're more able to be trained by MIND's methods and survive. End of story, you are the only person we could've sent that might come back to tell the tale outside of a straight jacket and a white room. That's why I'm wasting so much time informing you of all this, you'll need every advantage you can get."

"Oh…damn."

"Basically. It's a bad situation but if we really were to go to war again MIND would crush us in about five minutes. I seriously wouldn't give them anymore time in open battle. You might be the only advantage we get, Maxwell."

"Cool, don't I feel special."

Wufei blinked and the serious look evaporated off his face. "I didn't think you were capable of sarcasm."

Duo grinned. "Even Shinigami has an off day. So you aren't worried about Cassie?"

"The girl is going to outlive us all in a bad situation. She's slightly unbalanced but it's a real advantage. So no, I'm not an unforgiving jerk, I just know what's going on."

"Fine. Go patrol around the desert now."

Wufei went out the door. "What boring injustice…"

"Later, Wuffles."

"Damn baka."