Recomended Manpower:  5

A real group consistered of at least more than two people.

The girl continued to read the paper.  Around the bar, several able-bodied men were drinking, socializing, and in some cases, randomly getting into fights with each other just for the fun of it.

Payment Level:  S

Money comes before ideals or love.  Charity starts with yourself.

They were mercenaries, living off their fighting skills and taking jobs where they could get them.  Freelancing and experiencing a new adventure each and every day.

Estimated Risk Level:  S

Efficiency rating as judged by Shadaloo:  90%

A new adventure which could concievably be their last, each and every time.  Particularly with the people that hung around this particular underground bar.  These were the types of mercenaries referred to as the hunters.  They generally didn't deal with simple assassinations, espionage, or other human activities unless work was slim.  They had more dangerous high-paying things to do.

Job Status:  Reserved

In case of stubborn male, use hunter fact twenty four.  To get access to the highest to the highest paying jobs, they need YOU.

Many didn't believe that vampires, ghosts, and demons really existed.  The hunters of the night didn't mind.  As long as they got their pay, they could care less what the rest of the world thought.  In this particular case, the organization of Shadaloo once again had to deal with something which may or may not be supernatural, and there was only one hunter that they trusted enough to work for them regarding such matters.

She looked up from the paper and noted that several of the men in the bar were already watching her.  Just by the fact that she held that paper in her hands made it known to even new patrons that she was the key to the highest and most prestigious jobs that were possible to take.  Others were staring simply because she looked absolutely fabulous in that dark blue bodysuit and the belt with the gun holder she wore vaguely reminded them of a certain popular sexy media gal that robbed graves for a living.

Brushing some of her short red hair to the side, she slowly turned the paper towards the other patrons so they could read it before slowly smiling and arching her eyebrows.  "Any volunteers?"

Several of the men continued to read the paper she held while others pondered the risk versus reward ratio of the mission laid out before them.  Seeing that they were hesitant, the lady slowly stood up and walked up to one of the largest men, and leaned against him.  She slowly put her hand up to his chin, smiling all the way.  "Oh Roooooob, You know that a powerful man like yourself could easily handle a simple job like this."

Her actions elicited a grin in response from Rob.  "Heh, well, if you say so.  I'll come along."

Rob's somewhat thinner but still fit partner smacked himself in the forehead.  "Oh geez!  You always do this!  You know she's going to con you out of most of your payment in the end anyway, and the rest you'll just blow on food."

"Okay Jonas, so maybe Avelle always managed to do that to me before, but I'm not going to fall for the same thing this time!"   The big man gave his smaller partner a hearty slap on the back, sending his partner stumbling forward a bit.

Avelle stopped leaning on Rob and looked at Jonas.  "Well?"

"Fine, but only because the pay is good."  Jonas replied somewhat nonchalantly.

"Hmm... that's three.  I think I'll take along one more."  Avelle commented, counting on her fingers.  "No need to spread the pay check so thin."

Somewhat unoticed in a corner of the bar, a blonde-haired girl with the left bangs covering the left side of her face and wearing the same type of bodysuit watched as Avelle evaluated offers from several other hunters who wanted the job.

"Twenty-percent of the bounty?!?"  Avelle motioned another person away.  "You know that I'm supposed to be entitled to a larger share by the sheer fact that I'm leading this expedition, alone!"

The random hunter was about to protest when another young brown-haired man wearing a red jacket spun around on his chair to face Avelle and interupted.  "Hey Avelle, could I come along?  I've been running short on cash and I need to pay my bar tab again."

His words elicited some snickers from the crowd as Avelle frowned.  "Running short on cash again, Terrace?"

"Yea, why can't you start saving up for a change?"  Jonas commented.

"Hey, I had to use the rest of my money to give Alana a ride home."  Terrace coolly replied.  "I couldn't just leave her stranded here, could I?"

"Do I have to go over this AGAIN?"  Avelle frowned as the rest of the men in the bar rolled their eyes and went back to their own business to spare themselves from hearing the same speech again.  "Look, when you find a prospective significant other, you're supposed to leave with more money than you had in the first place, not less.  For example, if I'm hanging out with Rob and I have one thousand dollars at the start, by the end of the day I should have three thousand from him, which is greater than one thousand, as opposed to having only five hundred because I blew all my money on him in what should have been a mutual relationship.  Or at the very least have him spend all his money on me instead of vice-versa.  This isn't that hard, you know."

Rob grinned and waved.  "Hiyas."

"Erm... right, con money out of opposite sex.  Got it."  Terrace commented.

The other girl watching couldn't help but smile at the exchange of words.  As Avelle began calculating how much pay each party member would get with an extra share for herself, of course, Terrace sat down next to the short-haired blonde and sighed.  "So, I noticed you've finally gotten interested in this sort of thing, huh?"

"Yea..."  The young girl replied.  "Actually, I've wanted to be a great famous popular hunter like Avelle all along, but I doubt I could ever be as good as her and with current circumstances, I'm not even allowed to try.  I was hoping that by coming here and seeing Avelle for myself that I could at least maybe experience a little of what that dream would be like if it came true."

"Hmm..."  Terrace glanced back to see if anyone was watching, then kneeled down and took her hand.  "I'll make that dream come true for you."

"Really?"  The girl smiled.  "I'm not sure if my leader would allow it but..."

"Hey, don't worry about it."  Terrace grinned.  "I'm good friends with Avelle.  I'll be able to get you into the inner hunter circle in no time.  Besides, it seems like you have the credentials and the ability, so there shouldn't be a problem."

"Wow!  Thanks!"

"No problem."  Terrace replied, then paused.  "You know, it's really really wierd.  You already know all of us since you've been coming here for a while, but I don't think I know your actual name yet."

"My actual name?  Oh, I'm sorry.  It's Juni."

Terrace helped Juni out of her seat and bowed.  "Nice to meet you then, Juni.  I'll enjoy working with you."

Shadowloo's ex-special soldier has first-hand experience with supernatural matters that science can not comprehend.  Agent Avelle, Shadaloo's personal hunter, recieves orders from 'being charged an arm and a leg for her services' Shadaloo.

"Extract the fighting data of a powerful fighting beast in the jungles of Brazil and report your findings back to Shadaloo!"

Avelle stood at the edge of the cliff, looking at the forest below.  "You realize that this is a pretty stupid decision, right?  What made you want to take along this young inexperienced girl, anyway?"

"Hey," Terrace replied with a grin, "I couldn't refuse a lady.  Besides, you have to admit, she has excellent taste in clothes."

"It's a boring black body suit with a Ronald McDonalds cap."  Jonas mumbled.  "Would you like fries with that?"

"Fries are good for you, ya know?"  Rob commented.  "At any rate, she wears exactly what Avelle wears.  That style of clothing must have gotten popular among aspiring human female hunters, so I'm sure she can fight well."

Juni smiled.  "I can also beat Minesweeper on Shadowloo difficulty in fifty-four seconds."

Everyone stared at Juni oddly for a moment.  After a while, Avelle slowly commented, "That's... really impressive... in a geeky sort of way..."

Terrace added to her comment.  "Avelle managed to beat minesweeper on that difficulty level in fifty-nine seconds tops.  I must say that IS pretty impressive..."

"What's with all these mercenary girls and their infatuation with minesweeper?"  Jonas mumbled, continuing his habit of being overly bitchy.

"Just shut up and see if you can pick up the tracks."  Avelle snapped.  "The townsperson said he saw it come from this direction."

Jonas stared downwards then squinted for a moment.  He kneeled and wiped some leaves off the grass then stood up and pointed.  "There."

Avelle motioned to the rest of the group to follow and proceeded to go down the trail and head deeper into the forest.  As they were walking, Terrace read the mission statement from the job document.

"Extract the fighting data of a powerful fighting beast?"  Terrace looked at the paper in disgust.  "Who the heck writes this junk?  It sounds like the cruddy writing people do when they translate a fighting game's dialogue from Japanese to English!"

"A winner is you!"  Jonas announced..

Rob threw in his own fighting game quote into the pot.  "Wonderful activity for love!"

"The evil man was called 'The man who wields the blue beam.'"  Juni randomly quoted, although she couldn't remember the game it was from.

The group paused as a shadow quickly passed over them.

As she slowly took out a small gun from her belt, an annoyed Avelle whispered.  "So much for stealthily surprising our prey."

The gun was a custom gun that was about the size of a pistol, however, the barrel of the gun curved and narrowed inward then curved outward at the end, indicating that it shot something more refined than bullets.  Avelle had customized the gun to be able to handle all types of energy-based lasers due to the special circumstances that her job often contained.  Agent Avelle set the ray to a stun type of laser and stared upwards at the trees, the rest of the party quietly watching.

That's when the shadow decided to strike.

Or at least move again.  But it COULD have decided to strike, and that would have been bad, and instinctual reflexes don't wait to see whether a shadowy movement in dangerous conditions is an intent to strike or not.  Course, in the end, it was proven that it most likely didn't want to attack since after Avelle shot the poor creature it turned out to be nothing more than a simple monkey that was curiously watching the group.

Not bothering to check whether it was dead or not, the group nervously left the smouldering monkey corpse without commenting, though Terrace did whistle a little.

"Hold it!"  A yell from the forest quickly startled them.  Several men and women wearing generic tan explorer outfits and caps quickly surrounded the party and some immediately picked up the monkey and began administering first aid.  The black female speaker of the new group that came in, whom wore the same clothes as the others, quickly spun a spear around, and thwapped Avelle on the head with the handle of it.  "How dare you harm that poor innocent creature!  Can't you see that this poor poor little animal was merely curious about you, and you had the nerve to go and freaking SHOOT him for crying out loud!"

Another monkey, this one being a golden lion tamarin, quickly climbed up onto her arms, pointed at Avelle, and jumped up and down making angry noises.

Angrily gritting her teeth at being thomped on the head with a wooden stick, Avelle motioned to Rob, who grabbed the black girl by the collar.  Avelle then glared at the girl in Rob's grip.  "Look, you stupid PETA wannabes, I'm on an important mission right now and I'm not going to let a bunch of stupid environmental zealots and a dumb monkey get in my way!"

"Sick him, Tams!"  The black girl quickly yelled.  The golden haired monkey let out a shriek then lept onto Rob's face and began frantically clawing at it.  Rob screamed in pain as he stumbled backwards while everyone watched the really corny sight.

Avelle sighed then aimed her gun at the animal, not caring about the fact that she might accidentally shoot Rob in the head until Terrace called to her.  "Hey Avelle!  Jonas picked up the tracks of that powerful fighting beast again and they're pretty new!  We should get going before we lose it!"

"Avelle?!?"  The black girl stared at Avelle in shock as Mr. Tams went flying by and Rob brushed his face off.  "You?!?"

Juni pushed her aside.  "Obviously, you've never had any experience with any greatness even close to that of Avelle's."

The leader was quickly thwomped on the head with Avelle's gun before Avelle and Juni walked away from the environmentalist zealots.

"Heh.  Did you see the look on her face?"  Terrace remarked as they left the beat-up monkey and its newfound caretakers in the distance.

"Not really..." Rob commented.  "All I got to see was damn monkey chest hair as I struggled to breath back there."

As he investigated some markings on a tree nearby, Jonas remarked, "I have to admit that it's nice to have a girl like Avelle back again.  Ever since Avelle dissappeared last time, it's been really hard to find a high paying job."  Jonas stared at the tree again, which had some scratchings that painted a picture of a large stick man grabbing another stick man next to a stick tree.  "Well, at least we know that this beast is semi-intelligent.  I wonder what it was trying to draw ACK!!!"

There was a large flash of green that yanked away Jonas, then was gone.  Everyone blinked for a moment before Juni asked, "What the bleepgot was that?"

"Dammit!"  Avelle yelled.  "I underestimated it's speed.  I was told we'd be up against a big slow green gorilla, not an agile..."

"Monkey?"  Terrace finished the sentence.

"I'm really beginning to hate monkeys..."  Avelle muttered.

"Helloooooo!!!"  Jonas' voice rang from the treetops.  "I'm still alive here!  Tied up in a bunch of vines and barely able to tolerate this thing's god-awful smell but otherwise still in pretty good shape!"

"I'll save you!!"  Rob quickly climbed up the tree.  "YEARGH!"

Seconds later, Jonas' voice came from the tree again.  "Smooth move, you idiot!"

A somewhat large bulky green gorilla-ish thing wearing pants fell from the treetops along with a beat-up Rob, tied-up Jonas, and a bunch of bananas.  "Uwoooooo!!!"

Rob stood up and glared at it, then grabbed it in a bear hold.  "Hey!  You might have surprised me, but now I got you!"

He promptly got zapped by an electric field radiating from the beast.  The beast picked up Rob and Jonas and quickly ran off.  It then ran back, grabbed some bananas to eat, and ran off again.

"Hey,"  Terrace remarked.  "I remember that thing.  He's Blanka, a person who participated in a street fighter tournament a while back.  I don't think he's a monster."

"That's not a human!"  Avelle replied.  "Otherwise, how'd he get that ability to generate electricity?"

"Maybe he learned it from electric eels in the forest?"

Avelle paused for a short moment before speaking.  "That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.  And it still doesn't explain why his skin's green."

What was left of the hunter party quickly ran after the beast, where they found him in a shady clearing of the forest forcing Rob and Jonas to pick fleas off of him.

"Uwoooo?"  Blanka stared at Juni and Terrace curiously.

"Okay, you big smelly thing!  Let my friends go!"  Terrace yelled.  He dashed up to Blanka and was quickly swiped away by Blanka's fist.

A ray from Avelle's gun blasted Blanka, knocking him down.  "Do I have to handle everything, myself?"

Avelle was about to shoot the dizzied Blanka again, when...

"Hold it!"  A yell from the forest quickly startled them.  Several men and women wearing generic tan explorer outfits and caps quickly surrounded the party and some immediately picked up Blanka and began administering first aid.  The black female speaker of the new group that came in, quickly spun a spear around, and thwapped Avelle on the head with the handle of it.  "How dare you harm that poor innocent creature!  Can't you see that this poor poor little animal was merely curious about you, and you had the nerve to go and freaking SHOOT him for crying out loud!"

Blanka made a whiny noise in agreement.  "Uwooooo..."

"This is really getting ridiculous..."  Juni muttered.

The leader girl glared at Juni, then walked right in front of her.  "And YOU!  Don't think I don't know what you are."

"Olvere, this poor innocent animal is forcing us to pick fleas off him and bring him fruit."  One of her men yelled.

"H... hey!  Stop that!"  Olvere quickly left Juni alone in order to attempt to rescue the rest of her troops.  A large electric flash soon followed.

Emitting some smoke and her pet monkey somewhat char-broiled, Olvere slowly stumbled back to Avelle.  "After some forethought, we have decided that we have been unable to protect this poor creature due to the fact that we had to leave for first aid.  But don't think that you can get away with this!"  After saying that, she and her friends quickly ran off.

"Arooo?"  Blanka scratched his head in confusion, then proceeded to scratch his butt.

Juni leaned on her back leg and put her fists up as she entered into her fighting stance.  "I guess it's my turn to try taking him on, then."

"What?"  Jonas asked, with the other mercenaries just as surprised as he was.  "Aren't you a little inexperienced to..."

Ignoring them, Juni dashed up to Blanka using her mach slide, jumped up and kicked him, poked him with a quick fist attack, then did an upwards jumping cannon spike kick, rebounding safely away from the impact as a surprised Blanka slammed into a nearby tree.  Blanka, no longer curious and now quite pissed off, roared, curled up into a ball, then flew straight at Juni.  Juni blocked the blow and as Blanka rebounded off her, she shot forward feet first in a drilling motion with her cannon spike version of the psycho crusher and knocked Blanka back again.  Terrace, Rob, and Jonas watched in awe.

"Wow, even I don't believe it..."  Terrace muttered.

Jonas echoed his thoughts with his speech.  "She fights..."

"Just like Avelle does."  Rob finished the sentence.

Blanka, fully enraged, started jumping around wildly and kicking and scratching all over the place until, with Juni distracting him, the three men finally managed to tackle the strange man-beast.

Olvere watched as Juli, in the computer screen, had a confused look on her face.  "I'm still wondering how she got all the way over to Brazil."

"I despise it."  Janet commented from the computer screen.  "It managed to break out of its cage before our troops could get it into the plane, yet she delivered the beast and extracted the data so we still had to pay her!  There's a reason we had Avelle targetted by the Shadaloo hit squad in the first place."

Agent Olvere continued to listen to Janet's gripes as her pet monkey climbed onto her shoulder, then finally continued her inquiry about the girl she saw.  "So that agent was Agent Juni, then?"

"Yes.  I'm worried because it would appear that she has some serious flaws in her personality.  We all know what happened with Avelle.  I don't want it to happen with yet another agent."

Agent Marzche and Agent Juli were standing behind Janet, with Marzche not paying much attention as usual, and Juli obviously having to put up quite a large effort to keep from showing worry about her missing partner.

"You'd better hurry."  Olvere put Tams down on the ground and he ran off.  "Agent Juni was every bit as disagreeable and stubborn as Agent Avelle.  She was practically the exact likeness of her, sans the hair.  I wouldn't be surprised if she began picking up Avelle's abandon of M. Bison and shameless flirting with other men, either."

"Dammit."  The reply came from the computer screen.  "Where is the next job that this Avelle is taking?"

"New York.  It's a quick job and she'll probably be done with it soon, but she plans on staying there for a while."

"Ack!  New York?!?"  Juli blurted out, before Janet glared at her to silence her.

"Hmm... Doctor Yamoto cares for Juni since she is under his supervision, but it would take the precision of another agent to subdue her and return her to Shadaloo without hurting her too badly."  Janet sighed.  "I need you to follow her to New York and return her to Thailand."

"That is not my mission."  Olvere stated.  "I am after Avelle herself to verify that Agent Juli completed her mission.  I will not deviate from my orders without the over-ride command from Sir Bison himself."

For once, Juli had an extremely anxious look on her face, so Janet turned to her and they exchanged some words before Janet finally turned back to the screen.

"That's a negative.  Telling Bison about this would be one of the worst things I could do."  After seeing Olvere glance at her curiously about what she meant, Janet quickly added, "It's not good for his blood pressure."

The monkey jumped up and down and pointed to the clock, catching Olvere's attention.  She quickly turned back to the vid screen.  "Do as you wish.  I have a flight to catch."

Janet stared at Juli and shook her head.  "Well, since we can't send any agents from here to get her without Sir Bison finding out, I'm going to have to resort to more... unrefined methods.  Juni will get back, and though I know you won't like it, I imagine that the pain she's about to go through will probably make her never even consider running away, again..."