Well, there I was again, watching Fenrir in her training session again.  I've been doing this more often for a while now.  I wasn't exactly sure why.  Maybe it was because I just didn't have anything else to do.  I never was really interested in watching training matches that much since I preferred to spend my time simply chatting with friends or playing Minesweeper, but unfortunately, there really weren't any friends around that I could chat with anymore, since Avelle and Bremare are both long gone and Cammy's become just... ick, now, and my partner Juni was running off doing whatever.  Minesweeper just isn't that fun to play by myself all the time.  So, instead, I got to just sit by behind the glass window to the wooden floor of the dolls' private Dojo room in Mrigranka, and watch Fenrir and Aurora trade attacks and parries with their practice weaponry.  Apparently Fenrir finally decided that giving Aurora authentic weaponry wasn't a very good idea.  Pain builds character but one could only withstand so much, I guess.

From behind the window, the three girls watched.  A rather bored young brunette, with a bun in her hair and two long bangs in front.  A young rather serious African girl, who was staring at the match intently as her golden tamarin climbed on top of her rough somewhat curled hair.  And a short-haired Native American girl with a feathered headband and a buffalo hide vest.  They were Juli, Olvere, and Desire, and together the three were THE FANTASTIC SHADOWLAW DOLL TRIO!

Or maybe not.  Actually, Juli didn't really belong there at all.  The 'trio' really consisted of Desire, Olvere, and the Japanese brunette currently training with another agent in front of the glass, Fenrir.  The girl training with Fenrir, Aurora, was also Japanese, and had a blue cloth tied around her waist, but all wore the full body dark blue leotard that was the Shadowlaw Doll uniform.  All of them had short hair too, though Juli never could figure out why that was the case.  At any rate, it was rather strange that the trio, or quadruple if Aurora was included, managed to come into existence in the first place considering that Fenrir's personality was as likeable as the personality of a rabid panda.

Fenrir yelped again as Aurora got in another hit.  Aurora's style was rather unique.  The dolls' special forces fighting style focused on speed and range, but it sadly was only good for the offense if the opponent was caught off guard.  For some annoying reason, there seemed to be a myriad of various counters to whatever the dolls could muster for a jump-in attack, and Aurora was taking full advantage of it.  Even Fenrir's fast hooligan roll where she cannonballed at Aurora with her sword spinning wildly ended up with Fenrir being knocked away by a well placed upward cannon spike kick, which was immediately made more painful when Aurora immediately lashed out upwards with her nunchuks after she landed, smacking Fenrir back even more.

"Hmm.  Does it hurt yet?"

Fenrir staggered to her feet as Aurora watched on.  Holding one end of the nunchuk in her left hand while twirling the other end with her right, Aurora finally noticed that despite the nunchuks being mere wood, Fenrir was starting to experience just a little discomfort.

So... Aurora apparently figured it was time to see how much her fellow Japanese fighter could take.  Watching from the sidelines, Agent Juli saw her enter the offensive.  Aurora's small ponytail in her hair flew behind her as she charged, and all Fenrir really could do was stare wide-eyed as Aurora did a sideways swipe with her nunchuks, which lashed out like a whip and knocked Fenrir even farther back.

Juli couldn't figure out why Fenrir dealt with the dangers of training with Aurora.  Aurora was notoriously unstable.  In fact, she couldn't even figure out why Aurora was still around.  Compared to the rest of the dolls, she was a walking time bomb.  Well, she was perhaps one of the best fighters out of them all, but she was too unreliable to be of any practical use to Shadowlaw due to a little... defect she had.

"ENJOY IT!"  Another painful crack of the nunchuks.  "EXPERIENCE THE ENERGY OF PAIN.  BOW DOWN TO THE MASTER!"

This wasn't good.  Aurora was going berserk again. Of course, this always happened so all Juli had to do was calmly get some of the Aurasia drugs to get Aurora to calm down again.  She stood up from her chair while the cracking sounds of Fenrir getting the beatdown continued to ring in the distance, but Doctor Janet apparently heard the commotion and had already arrived.

"Fenrir!  I told you to stop letting Aurora out!"  Pulling out a staff from her lab coat, the annoyed scientist leaned one foot forward as she spun the stick around behind her.  "Fortunately for you, I already came prepared.  Juli, Olvere, distract Aurora for a moment."

What did she plan on doing?  Juli decided to speak up.  "Janet, don't you need the Auras..."

"I know what I'm doing, Agent Juli!"  A strange looking talisman was pulled out of Janet's lab coat.

Well, couldn't disobey orders.  Olvere readied her practice spear while Juli immediately leaped towards Aurora with a fast flying jump kick.
 

I guess I finally figured out how Fenrir managed to get together with Olvere, Desire, and even Aurora.  I don't know why Janet was so hard on all of them just because they couldn't hold Aurora off long enough for her to do whatever she was going to do with that weird jeweled thing she held before Aurora decided to redirect her target to the scientist and beat the stuffing out of her, but it was pretty apparent when I got the pick up duty.  As Janet cursed at Fenrir for being an idiot and letting a failed experiment loose like that, and Fenrir began to shout back about how Aurora understood her a lot more than Janet did, I finally realized something that a more successful agent like me wouldn't have noticed that much.  They were united by failure, and that was why they were all so close to each other despite the rather odd mix of personalities.

Shadowlaw Elite DOLL Agents were supposed to be specially trained for espionage, assassination, and whatever.  They are NOT supposed to go rampant giving everyone the gift of S&M!  Agent Juli, another one of these dolls, receives new orders from a head scientist, Janet, on the fly.

Dammit, bring back Aurora.  NOW!
 

He was the maddest of the mad!!  His frazzled mad scientist hair cut and slightly hunched back proved it enough, but then there were his robot masters.  Oh, his wonderful creations!!!  They would wreak havoc upon the world, and conquer everything, and why?  BECAUSE HE WAS MAD!!!  Hahahahahaha!!!  No one could surpass Senoh's mad madness skillz!  The fact that the first eleven batches of robots he made ended up failing to fully complete their purpose?  A mere oversight, really!  Besides, even mad scientists had their offdays.  Hey, as he opened the back of the large truck, Senoh figured that at least he was learning from his mistakes.  Lessons which would now culminate in the perfection of his next batch of robots, MEGA MARK TWELVE!

The rather old scientist cackled with glee as he opened the back of the truck to reveal HIS LATEST CREATION!

His latest creation turned into a junk heap.

Senoh stood in shock at the broken and beat down robots... all eight of his robot masters!!!  NO!  This couldn't be!  Blasteroid Man, Bulbasswhore Man, Char Man!  DERG!!!!!!!!!  Who could have done this?!

Then, he saw her.  It was one of Lord Bison's DOLL agents.  It was the one that... uh oh.

Aurora angrily waved to one of the robot men then smacked another's head off with her nunchuk.  "WHY DO THEY NOT FEAR?!  They don't feel any PAIN, they don't even SCREAM in JOY of TERROR, they don't..."

The crazy old kook could only stare as Aurora smacked a few more of the various robots around, hoping he wasn't next.  Aurora obviously wasn't satisfied with the reception though, and finally leaped out of the truck into the large city street outside.

Several passerby stared at the pretty young girl as she looked around.  She slowly shook her head, and turned to the still stunned doctor.

"They wouldn't appreciate it.  There are too many of them here.  Stay here!  I'll go find some opportunities to dispense the gift to them that need it the most.  And if you find Dragoneyes, tell me."

Then she was gone, lost among the crowd, which was just as confused as he was.

A phone ringing.  Senoh quickly pulled the cell phone out of his lab coat, and knew immediately by the voice who was calling him.  It was Professor Irvine.  This was not his day.

"Vhere is zhee destruction?  Zee head of zee physics department of zee great wonderful organization known az Shadowlaw should be much more competent than zis!!!"

"......."  Nope, not his day at all.  Senoh did not need these insults.

"Zey got destrozyed by zee doll, did zey not?  I saw zee robot's camera!  Your robots are too inferior!  Zey can not even defeat zee szimple CLONEZ of zee authority figure!  You need to listen to me!  Silly man who doez not follow zee way.  Fortunately, zee doll shall be retrieved by anozer, but zese robots are abominations!!!"

The other doll Irvine was talking about could already be heard running in the distance.  Senoh continued to listen to more of Irvine's rants until she finally caught up to him, panting for breath.

"Agent... Juli... reporting!  Did you..."

Senoh simply pointed in the direction he saw Aurora run in.  The brunette saluted in reply.

"Thanks!"

"Now anyway!  Zee first thing you muzt do to make a truly powerful szet of robot masters eez to..."

As she ran off, Irvine continued ranting on and on and on and on....

Dan sighed contentedly as he dipped some ice cream into the blender in Ran’s kitchen.  This was one of the times he’d cooked here without making a slightly bigger deal of it than he should have.  Since Ran was at school, he decided against the fanciness his usual take on mealtime deserved.  Besides, it was hard to get worked up over a milkshake.

Ah, done finally!  Taking the plastic cup piece off the blender, Dan strolled over the great distance to the dining room (which happened to double as ‘the part of the kitchen with a table in it’), all two steps of it.  He sat down, the large cold blender piece resting easily on the table as Dan glanced from side to side.  Ran: at school. Windows: shut. Door: locked.

Perfect.

With his fears eased, Dan did something he preferred not to do in others company.  Letting the chair lean back on two legs in a precarious position, Dan let his bare feet rest upon the table top.  He was able to cross his legs without the sound of cloth scraping, as the shorts he wore weren’t long enough to be affected by his legs movement.  While there was a slight concern
in his mind about getting vanilla milkshake on his black t-shirt, he shook it off the moment he took his first gulp out of the cup.  Regular glasses be damned!

Taking his lips from the cup while congratulating himself on another culinary feat, Dan stared at the ceiling and was happy he’d found a new home.  About a week after the Bogard Store incident, both he and Ran were mutually agreed that he wasn’t living anywhere else for a good long while, and apparently her landlords didn’t mind.  Dan had been worried that the Taiyo School Board would kick him, or even worse, his sister out once they found out she had a brother.  Luck was with them, it seemed, as apparently it didn’t violate any of the clauses in Ran’s hardship contract with the school.  No parents, relatives, probably very few friends...  Dan was glad Gouken knew about how good the school system was in this city, even though to this day he still kicked himself mentally for abandoning Ran. Still, an eleven year old doesn’t have much say over his nine year old sister's fate in some matters.

“Gouken...you old bastard. Why the hell can’t I just hate you normally?” Dan thought, ”Why’d you have to be so nice to my family....”  Dan allowed his eyes to close, and tried to recall the old man’s face.  He remembered he was a very large man, bald only on top of his head, while the rest of his facial hair wound its way across his mouth and behind his head.  He vaguely remembered the last few days when Ran would giggle and play with his long beard, which reached almost over his stomach.  The brown karate suit Gouken always wore, Dan wondered if it was just age in the material or if there was something more.  He never allowed Dan to wear a brown one, for some reason. He also was never allowed to don the black colors of Gouki.  Strange.

Dan’s momentary peace and reflection was intruded upon moments later.  A large, shouting din was beginning to invade his ears from outside.  While it soon got significantly louder, Dan simply assumed the best and that a few people had too many early drinks and were arguing too loudly.

The peace and reflection dropped and broke as he heard several people go from angry shouting to cries of pain.  At the first screaming ouch, Dan tried to jump out of the chair to go see what the problem was outside.  Unfortunately, with his feet still on the table, he ended up toppling over onto the floor, and yes, did get the milky white vanilla all over his black t-shirt.

Ignoring the dribbling blob as it wound it’s way down his shirt, Dan rushed outside.  He had been expecting some sort of gang-related warfare, given his recent experiences.  However, all he found were some random pedestrians grabbing various parts of themselves with pained looks on their faces.

“Hey, what happened here?” asked the Saikyo warrior.  One individual, an average-looking joe salary-man, stepped up holding his shoulder.

“Some crazy lady dressed in black and blue went screaming through hitting people with nunchucks.  And those things hurt like hell!” he groaned.  While Dan pondered the information recently gathered, he heard a few muffled snickers from the injured man.

“What’s so funny?” asked Dan.

“Well, uh...you know, you’ve got some vanilla stuff dripping down your shirt, man...” the man snickered again as if Dan were some sort of mentally disabled clown, but was silenced as Dan stood in one of his most dramatic poses.  Hands on his hips, face defiantly staring into the horizon, his ponytail whipping about (or at least, waving slightly) in the breeze, the man might have been struck by awe if it weren’t for the already-mentioned vanilla still making it’s merry way down Dan’s front.  Directing the fire in his eyes directly on the snicker-man, Dan made a proclamation in his most authoritative and regal voice.

“Stupid idiot! Can you not see that I am wearing, not a black shirt, but in actuality, a vanilla colored shirt, with the inky blackness being but a smear on the good name of my shirt and your family!?”  While the man looked somewhat lost, Dan simply pushed him away, and closed his eyes, turning his head in a disgusted manner.  “Leave my sight, for you’ve obviously displayed your ignorance and soiled this fine day!”  Pivoting on his heel, and marched back into the house and slammed the door.

While joe-salary-man simply looked at the house with a very “Huh?”-esque expression, one of the other pedestrians nearby chalked it up as seeing two crazy people in one day.

Well, it was easy enough for Juli to track Aurora's position.  The semi-insane girl left a trail of beaten people where ever she went.  None of the damage anyone suffered really was permanent though, since Aurora always enjoyed just simply causing pain more than anything else for some reason.  Juli preferred to incapacitate her opponent through less contingent direct means, herself.

Juli had long ago changed into something more casual so she wouldn't attract attention.  Just a simple dark blue shirt and some tan corduroy pants.  Nothing special.  The police were probably after the still-in-'uniform' Aurora right now, but they wouldn't be able to catch her.  Shadowlaw agents weren't trained to be caught, after all.

The brunette made her way through the rather normal city, until she saw her.  Not Aurora, but some teenager a couple years younger who was taking a picture of one of the beaten citizens, much to his annoyance.  The black-haired girl wore a large layered vest, and had a short blue dress and somewhat longer short tights for pants.  It was time to play 'good cop', since this mission didn't need a brat tagging along taking pictures of everything.

"Hey, you!  You shouldn't be around here.  It's dangerous."  That felt really wierd for Juli to say.  This was confounded by the fact that she really wasn't much older than the girl she was talking to, even though Juli did often look a little older than she really was, at least.

She was expecting the girl to listen to her.  Juli, never actually going throughout the phase herself, sadly forgot that teenagers were rebellious.  The young girl looked at the brunette up and down, incredulously.  "And how would you know?  You just got here."

It was time to think of excuses to get her out of the way.  "I know who's doing this.  She's... a friend of mine.  Simply put, sometimes her medication overreacts when she gets drunk and unless you know how to handle her, you're only asking for trouble."

The excuse wasn't working.  The girl clenched a fist in thought, putting near her own face in one of those wierd anime poses that probably had a name but Juli forgot what it was.  "A friend, out of control because of her medication?  It's true... my course is clear!"  She opened her eyes, looking to the heavens in almost a sort of trance.  "I must discover what this medicine is, so I can expose it's dangers to the world! "

"Expo... wha?"  Damn!  The situation was worse than she thought.  Having more Shadowlaw info leak out to the entire world was all they needed.  "Um... look, I'll have to repeat myself.  This is really dangerous here.  You're more out of your league than you think.  I have the counter medicine, but I really can't afford to have any bystanders getting in the way."

The girl apparently had to laugh at that.

"Bystander?  I am no mere bystander!  I am, in fact, blood related to one of the most..."   She faltered for a second.  "...  uh.... 'remarkable' fighters in the world!  You will have no trouble with Ran Hibiki at your side!  Ha-ha!"

All Juli could do was wonder where these people came from.  She wasn't sure how exactly to reply.  Was that an introduction?  What was she supposed to say?  Juli realized she had to think of a last name for herself probably, then, since that Ran Hibiki person gave her one.  Dominquez?  Yoshiba?  Horse?  No, she needed something Native American.  Wait, what the hell?  No she didn't!  Something German.

... Dammit.  Did it matter?  Juli herself didn't have a last name for a reason.  Or more to the point, a lack of one.

"Well, besides the fact that Hibiki doesn't really ring that much of a bell, you'd be surprised at how little bloodlines and inherited DNA actually means.  While we're pointlessly proclaiming names, you can call me Juli, and my slap-happy friend is Aurora.  There are no last names, because a last name is pointless."

Pointless indeed.  Twelve girls, all with the same DNA, all cloned from the same source for crying out loud, yet all completely different.  It was something Juli by now was actually kind of proud of, herself.  Making up a last name would actually be a disrespect to that.  Not that this Ran girl fully got the point, as indicated by her slapping herself in the forehead, or facepalms, whatever the term.  Or maybe she did.  "And here I thought parents were just being lazy nowadays.  Regardless, Juli, we must be off to find this Aurora!  And I'll be sure to give you credit for helping me expose the defective medication when I get my scoop!"

Hmm.  She was either really ignorant or really masochistic... ah well, Juli supposed she could use a decoy.  She figured that maybe she'll just pawn off the science department's latest anti-aphrodisiac on Ran and say that was Aurora's medication once this was all done.

"You're right!"  The brunette's outer mood quickly picked up.  "It's a rather experimental drug, but it's also probably heavily in use by many people not just around this city, but around the world!  Here, since you were here first, you probably have a better direction of where she went than I do, so why don't you lead the way?  I'll tell you about everything that's going on for your troubles."

Delighted, Ran dropped her camera, the strap keeping it from falling to the ground, and clapped her hands together.  "Cool!  Danny'll be so proud that I discovered this drug ring!  That Aurora girl seemed to be heading in this direction."  She started walking down a path and unknown to Juli was thinking to herself,  "I wonder how ignorant this girl has to be to have never heard of Dan. Wearing bright pink makes for interesting reputations."

Drug ring?  Dammit!  How did she find out that Juli was... oh.

"Hey, before I forget," Ran quickly brought up her camera, pointing it at Juli.  "Smile!"

Juli stared at the camera.  Cameras were BAD.  Juli did not need her face plastered all over the news about her being involved with a drug ring, since then she could never go undercover again.  As if all her recent screw ups were bad enough.  But she found that she didn't want to simply punch out this girl's lights for some reason.  It seemed out of place and she really didn't need to get involved that way.  Well, that and the fact that Aurora would probably be beating the poor girl into submission anyway.

The brunette quickly put on her grey porcelain mask before Ran could take a picture  "I'm really not one for public appearances.  I have this psychological disorder where they make me feel feint.  Really!  You can take pictures of Aurora though, since I imagine she's going to be cooped up in the nuthouse rather permanently after this.  That is to say... her home!  Yea."

It was rather sad that Aurora was only slightly crazier than every other member of Shadowlaw, it seemed.  Ran had really good reflexes for a girl who appeared to be nothing more than a junior news reporter.  She hit the shutter on the camera the second the mask came up.  "Well, uh...okay.  So... just how dangerous is Aurora, anyway?"

NOW she was asking how dangerous Aurora was?  Juli never could understand people who went out of their way to get into other peoples' business.  She herself always had to be forced to tag along things against her will whenever other peoples' business came along for her.  Though she supposed that since Ran was probably a news reporter of sorts, then it was Ran's job to get into other peoples' business anyway.  She probably should have been nicer to Ran on those grounds alone, so as she followed Ran along, Juli figured she might as well start by being honest.

"Well, I did already say that you are probably biting off a lot more than you can chew here.  Ah well, as long as your finger bones aren't broken, you can still take the pictures even if all the other bones are, at least, right?"

The other girl slowed down considerably and practically sweatdropped.  "You know... in dangerous situations like this, maybe it would be wise to have an expert helping us.  My brothers near here [and a pain threshold like his means he'd make a great deco-er, distraction while i get some shots], and he's handled gangs before [He DID say he beat someone up in a Mcdonalds... I'm sure that counts as halting gang activity.  Sure.  Definately.  Uh-huh.].

Her... policeman vigilante gang-busting doesn't-mind-his-own-business brother?  Wow!  Maybe Juli could meet a male Makoto.  Save for the fact that Makoto was saving her own village during the Jokuzetsu fiasco so it WAS her own business and Juli still had to apologize to the poor girl for blaming what those two walking holocausts did on her.  Hmm... guess it wasn't a male Makoto after all, and once again, Juli probably had to drop the subject because it was being cruelly disrespectful of the steamroller girl.  But Juli herself still would rather this guy didn't come along, though it didn't look like there was any other choice.  Sarcasm time.

"Huh?  Well, why not?  I always did enjoy having an entire circus tag alongside everything I do.  Just make sure he doesn't bring any friends and they don't bring any friends of their friends, okay?  This is getting out of hand."

"Two people walking down the street is getting out of hand?"  Even though she was confused, Ran probably had a point with that rhetorical question, so Juli decided to let it drop as Ran walked up to the door of a house and started to unlock it.  A strange young man who might have been only a bit older than Juli opened the door.  He was wearing what looked like a vanilla ice-cream coated black shirt as well as a penguin doll, and he was rubbing it's face in the vanilla to get it out, with a slightly evil look to his eye.

Where did these people come from?  Juli had thought that by getting out of Shadowlaw, she could escape the land of the crazies.  But just as how the planet of the apes was earth all along, it seemed to be the case with the planet of the nutcases.  The theory that she was insane in a sane world seemed to make more and more sense with each passing day.

The guy didn't notice Juli yet.  "Hi Ran, you're back early."

"Dan, uh..."  Ran had already noticed the awkwardness of the scene, herself.  She leaned forward and asked quietly, though Juli could hear what she was saying.  "The penguin hasn't been yelling at you again, has it?"

A tag on the penguin caught Juli's attention.  It was just an extremely rare coincidence to see something that related to Aurora's quotes whenever that girl spazzed out.  The brunette decided to comment.

"Made in the arctic circle, huh?  Didn't know there was an actual company for that."  She took off her mask with one hand, deciding on a formal approach.  "So, good day, Mr. Hibiki.  I think your younger sister here wants some assistance to assist her in assisting me with a little runaway who happens to be going a bit rampant through the city."

Juli was taking Ran's remark on her brothers sanity in surprising stride, which at least Ran probably noticed.  Juli found it really easy to sympathize with the reporter in training.  It kinda reminded Juli of herself, to be related to strange people.  This Dan fellow was only marginally stranger than Fenrir, Aurora, and Juni, if he was even stranger at all.

He was taking Juli's and Ran's request in stride, himself.  "Okay... I guess I'll come along.  Give me a minute to change though."

"Come on in!"  Ran motioned to Juli.  "Have a drink or something."

A drink actually sounded like a really good thing at the time.  It seemed like it has been such a long time since Juli was able to have one with anyone.  Truth of the matter was, her last one was with Bremare and that one just... ended on a rather sour note.  Of course, Ran wasn't offering Juli any wine, but even lemonade or iced tea would have been fine.  The two walked into the kitchen to the table, only to find a fallen chair and a rather white sticky patch that smelled like vanilla ice cream.

Ran sweatdropped again.  "Dan, just what were you doing in here?"

From somewhere else nearby changing, Dan shouted his reply.  "Nothing, really!"

Juli had to pause for a moment, before coming up with a reply of her own.

"I think I've seen worse.  Well, at least about equal."  Well, whatever.  With drinks at the table, there was supposed to be small talk.  Juli already knew which subject to talk about first.  "You... LIVE with this guy here?"

Ran actually suddenly seemed to get rather little sister-ish at that question.  "For a few weeks now.  I haven't seen him in about nine years.  Cute little soap opera coincidence, no?"

Sitting down, the younger girl offered Juli a seat.  This was really nice.  It was such a long time.  Ran offering her a seat like that was enough for Juli to like her.  Juli was fast to take it.

A little soap opera?  Juli didn't know where to begin with her soap opera experiences.  "Ah.  Well, I suppose it's always good to catch up on old times.  I think I only had one 'family' member who always returned for me.  The rest... just ran off and dissappeared.  I'll probably have to drag Aurora back by force though.  Strange how she seems to be heading to a specific destination, though I don't know why."

Friends that ran away, family that dissappeared never to be heard from again... Avelle, Bremare, even Cammy to an extent... hopefully Ran would never have to go through the horror of having to actually kill one, at least.

"Is that family member Aurora?" the girl inquisitively asked.

Hmm.

There was only one problem with what seemed like an ideal set up of good old times.  Unlike Cammy or Avelle or Bremare or 'that family member' Juni, Juli couldn't share all her secrets with Ran for rather obvious reasons.  It was sad, because at that moment, the Shadowlaw doll wished to rant her heart out.

"No... I guess you could say Aurora's actually a family member of another friend of mine.  Or maybe we're all family, though it's just that some of us are closer to each other than others."

Because she couldn't be completely honest, Ran herself got the expected confused reaction, complete with blinks.  "Just how many people without last names are there?"

Because she couldn't be completely honest, Ran's next question also threw Juli off guard.

"Come to think of it, where're you from?"

Shadowlaw agents were specially trained for espionage, stealth, and assassination.  They weren't trained to socialize.  The response that Juli blurted out reflected this.

".............I'm from Kansas!"

Ran arched an eyebrow.  "That... makes sense, I guess.  Dan, you ready yet?"

On cue, Dan walked into the kitchen wearing what must have been his normal fighting attire.  A standard karate gi... except it was in pink for some reeeeeaaaaaally wierd reason.  Even Shadowlaw DOLLs chose a more neutral dark blue for their uniform.  Ran's brother sure had a rather flamboyant taste in color.

"Sure, let's go!"  Dan shook a fist in the air.  "For the memory of our dear departed father!"

Ran and Dan, in sync, both shook their fists in the air and shouted, "Oyajiiii!!!!!"

Juli blinked, twice.  "For the mem... are all normal people like this?  Well... erm, yea, I guess we should get going then.  It's always good to have at least one thing to unite behind, I suppose."

"We're more normal than a lot of people around here."  Ran beamed.  "You should have been around when the principle of Justice went nuts."

The trio exited the house and continued in the direction they were going before they entered the house in the first place.  Ran's comment did ring a bell though.  Justice Academy was something Fenrir commented on a lot for some reason.

"Principle of Justice?  Oh... I think I've heard about that.  At least, a friend of mine paid heavy attention to the tabloids for some reason when it was going on."  Juli never could understand why Fenrir was so infatuated with that high school.  "Something to do with brainwashing, I believe.  If where I came from was any indication about places that have brainwashing, Justice High was probably a nuthouse, too."

A pause as Ran and Dan stared at her.  Damn, time to add a clarifying addendum again.

"Because Kansas is filled with crazies!"

It was a dark and stormy night...somewhere else in the world.  Here it was a bright, sunny, becoming-a-slightly-less-sunny-and-more-dusky day.  As the three lone travelers traveled down the road of traveling travelment, they sang a merry song to keep their spirits up.

“We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!”

Well, actually they didn’t sing, and they weren’t really travelers so much as three people who the poker-card dealing hand of fate had decided to throw into the mix to see if they would or would not taste good with a chocolate center.  Or something like that.  Regardless, they kept walking to their destination, even though they knew not where said destination was.

Until of course, they found it.  Or her, actually.  Because referring to a cute, if violent girl as ‘it’ was exceptionally rude, and rude though they may be, this was not a rudeness that needed to be committed.

“Do you not FEEL the PAIN!? Why do you not FEAR FEELING the PAIN!?” screamed/asked the screaming/asking girl.  Clad in a dark blue bodysuit, with a lighter blue piece of cloth around her waist, Dan had to blink a moment before springing into action.

Springing into action, of course, meant Ran having to snap him out of his admiration by shoving his butt into the fray.  The two nameless bystanders receiving the smackdown from the violent girl quickly scampered off as the mass known as Dan ended up running into the smaller mass known as Aurora.  Ran felt once again the cold sting, or rather the moderately chilly wetness that occurred with sweatdropping as Dan was hurled off the girl onto his back.

“AH! ONE HAS COME SEEKING THE GIFT OF PAIN!” shrieked Aurora. The spinning nunchucks made a downward arc for Dan’s body, but struck only cement as he rolled away.  Coming out of the roll on one knee, the duo of Ran and Juli were about to be given a spellbinding demonstration of the ultimate fighting style: SAIKYO-RYUU!!!!!

“Is that all you-ouch!”

Or not.

“FEEL THE GIFT!” and a thwack and whap and a snappa-bappa-CRACK!

“Ow ow ow ow ow!”

Ran sighed.  Nope, not able to get a picture yet.  Her brother hopping around holding a severely bruising arm is NOT something she wanted on the front page of her school paper. Ran was a bit surprised by her brothers sudden tactic change.

“Your pain isn’t WORTH feeling!” yelled Dan, hands taken away from his inured arms and placed on his thankfully-non-injured hips. “I mean, why should I feel the pain of some ninja-wannabe chick with a pair of second-rate nunchucks?”

Aurora was taken aback, no one had ever DARED to insult her fighting style like this! “S-second rate?  I’ll make you PAY for–“

“Oh yeah?  How?  Those two-bit nunchucks couldn’t hurt a baby!” laughed Dan, tactfully ignoring the multicolored splotches adorning his arms. “And your tiny muscles, how in the world could you ever dispense any decent amount of pain?  Hahahaha!  Even those  shoddy sticks of wood couldn’t help you!  I’ve met someone who could cause pain, girl, and you’re nowhere near her level! And that was seven years ago!”  Dan continued to laugh while Aurora just looked confused. She looked about to make some sort of verbal attempt to defend herself, but was silenced as Juli shot over, taking advantage of her momentary lapse, and shot her with a syringe full of liquid.

Aurora blinked a few times, as if she was lost. “Where...am I?”

Dan hadn’t seemed to notice Juli’s intervention.  “And now you think you can get away with a cornball soap-opera line like THAT?”

“Dan,” began Ran, “you can stop now.”

“Oh. Right-o then.”

And so they defeated the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!

“Thanks Juli!” yelped Ran, cuddling the vial she was just given as though it were a brand-new stuffed penguin. “With this I’m sure to get a scoop!  Yahoo!”  The little jump of joy at the end of her thanking really was kinda cute.  In that perky, cheerleader O.D.ing on school spirit kinda way.

“Well...good for you?” asked/said Juli. She turned her head, much like a deer in headlights turns to a female dear on the side of the road that promises a lot more fun than being hit by a car, as a plane announced it’s final boarding. “I  guess that’s my flight...  See you. C’mon Aurora.” She began walking off, and continued on that course until it was apparent that she was walking in singularity. “Aurora?”

“Are you sure I didn’t hurt you too bad?”

Dan scoffed, in the scoffing manner reserved for expert scoffers. “Of course!  Despite your valiant efforts, I was in little real danger.  No hard feelings at all.”

Aurora smiled, no similes included. “Oh.  Good.  I, uh...was afraid I might have damaged something.  I’m glad you’re okay.” And then suddenly, and without warning, there was a

TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN!

Or rather, there wasn’t, however the awkward silence that suddenly descended was not unlike the blazing light of day being blotted out by darkness. At least until Aurora found herself being dragged away by Juli. “Bye Dan!  Bye Ran!” she called, waving goodbye.

“Bye bye Aurora!” Ran shouted back.

“You’re welcome back any time you go berserk!” added the still pink-clad brother.  As the two disappeared from view, he turned to the younger Hibiki, who seemed to have been entranced by the vial she held in her hand. “So, what is that crap, anyway?”

“I don’t know.” she replied, unscrewing the lid and giving egress to some small, purple fumes.

“Hey, I don’t think you should be checking it here, security and all...” started Dan, putting his hand on her shoulder.  However, the moment he did this he found himself sprawled out on his back several feet away.

“Do not touch me, male!” was the low growl that emitted from his sisters throat.  Once Dan had scraped the ice off the command, he made darn sure to look frightened. “We’re going home.  NOW!”

And thus, for minutes to come, there would be moderate amounts of talk circulating about a man in bright pink being dragged out by a Taiyo High School student.

Well, they were going back at Mrigranka again.

Another day, another mission.  It was a rather endless pointless cycle when Juli thought about it.  So now Juli was going to return Aurora, and everything would be updated as such, and then things would... well, start over again.  Normally, Juli wouldn't think to talk to other agents she didn't know very well, but there was something about the recent events that sparked her curiosity a little.  She figured she might as well take the chance while it presented itself.

"So..." the brunette began.  She was slightly at a loss for words, however, on how to start the conversation.

Aurora didn't respond.  She was being rather quiet, as usual.  Or at least, it was usually the usual from what Juli saw of her.  Which was why she was pretty perplexed by everything.  But what was she supposed to say when she simply wanted to know why Aurora had already taken such a sudden liking to a complete stranger?

Juli didn't even say goodbye to those two.  Saying it would have indicated an actual friendship.  She already learned her lesson that those don't spring up overnight, and one really can't make them while one is an elite agent for an evil underground organization of sheer evil evilness.  Maybe if she subtlely implied...

"Anyway," continued Juli as she tried to make eye contact with the notoriously defective doll at the other side of the transport, "You seem pretty cheerful today."

No reply except perhaps a wierd stare for a brief moment.  Juli couldn't really blame her, really.  It was a rather awkward conversation and it wasn't like she actually did know Aurora that well in the first place.  But Juli still couldn't figure out why Aurora was so fast to be worried about Dan or say goodbye when she knew them even less than Juli did.

"Hmm..."  Aurora apparently decided that it was probably better to at least give Juli some sort of answer, which was good since Juli really wasn't in the mood to be ignored.  "He knows something.  More so than everyone else in that city.  That's all."

That really did end up being all for the ride.  There was a bit more though when the two finally arrived back at base and Janet greeted the two.  Or... greeted Aurora at least.  Well, it was sort of a greeting.

"You... What do you think you were... ARGH!  I swear, Agent Aurora.  This was the worst incident yet!  Someday you'll take this too far and you know what?  Why do we even put up with..."

Before she could complete her sentence, she was immediately shoved aside by Fenrir and sent flying into something that resulted in a bunch of regular Shadowlaw members screaming "Hey!" and a bunch of other random remarks as Fenrir gave the returning girl a more friendly greeting.

"You're finally back!  How was it?  You really shouldn't do that, you know."

"I... really can't help it..."

"Hey, don't worry about it!  And don't worry about Janet, either.  She's just doing it again, as always."

"Hmm... perhaps..."

"Oh, Juli... erm, Juli?"  Fenrir's addressing of the other doll caught Juli off guard.  She had almost forgotten that she herself existed while she was observing the two Japanese girls.

"Ah!  Oh.  Sorry, I was... thinking about something."

"Yea, well, anyway, Juli," continued Fenrir.  "Thanks, again.  Though... really, you don't seem like you were even scratched.  You must have found her after her fit was over.  You know, I hardly think that really counts for much.  Janet really should have sent me.  Why don't you come along for..."

"Erm, no thanks."  Juli remarked, thinking about how she'd rather not be one to experience Aurora's whip nunchuks of pain in a training session should she go beserk again.  "I think I'll just watch."

"Slacking off like always, I see.  Sheesh, whatever.  I'll let it slide this time.  Come on, Aurora.  We have the training floor."

It was too bad.  Juli suspected that Dan was a traveler, and wouldn't be able to stay with his younger sister for long.  And herself?  The length of time she was able to stay with those two was more than enough indication.  She was merely Juli, the girl with no last name.  A simple created agent of Shadowlaw who's life's job was to serve, and one who couldn't even maintain a friendship that lasted any significant length of time.  Hopefully maybe someday, Ran could find some friends and family who were more reliable than she was.

As for Dan, well, Juli's initial instinct was that ANYONE could find a friend more reliable than Aurora, but maybe she was wrong about that too.  As the brunette watched the next training session, she saw Aurora land another blow that got past Fenrir's failed defense, and Fenrir stagger back from the hit.  Fenrir had already regained her composure, and was over the pain, ready to have at it for another round.  Olvere bowed her head down for a nap and Desire cheered the two on, and the smile on Fenrir's face despite the impact of Aurora's hit did make Juli finally remember something.  She wasn't the only one without the last name who wasn't in Kansas anymore.

At the end of the day, Juli crept back into her room.  She turned on the lights, and glanced around the beds and the furnishings.  She was the only one there.  Juni still had her poster of Avelle on the wall.  The one about April Showers Maytime Flowers.  On the desk, they still had that picture of Bremare for some reason.  It was absurd, holding onto the past... they would never return.  They were pretty much gone for good, unlike Ran's brother.

She took another picture out of the desk that she had acquired recently.  It was rather odd of the bathhouse to have auto-photo shoots.  The photo of Yang was of good quality though.  It'd make for a good story to tell her partner.  Looking at the final picture on the desk of the two dubbed-sister (though they weren't really) agents, Juli shook her head and smiled.  The rest was the past, and nothing could be done about that, anyway.  It had just been too long since she last saw her, but Juni told her that her last Baxter Corp bounty would be over soon.

Setting down Avelle's music box on the desk with the rest of the memorabilia, Juli lay down on her bed with her arms behind her back, stared up at the ceiling, and began the wait for her 'sister' to finally return.