Disclaimer: I do not own Read or Dream, Read or Die, R.O.D. the TV, etc. The story idea is my own, original characters are either mine or used with prior permission from their true creators.

Exploration Explanation Condemnation Exclamation! (read as "author's note")

In the end this story is the sort that I know won't have a lot of fans, or reviews. I don't mind that at all, it is already written to completion so I will update one way or another. You see this is being done mostly for me, it's being shared for the few who'll find it interesting.

Our story is set a year before the paper sisters meet and pretty much just before their memories get altered. This story depicts the events before they become Paper Masters and have their memories modified to become the Paper Sisters. Sunny Wong is one of the stars so there will be violence. Oh boy golly gosh will there be violence in this story once things get moving! This is a work of fan fiction, it has no effect on the real material which I do not own and therefore there's no point making a fool of yourself and flaming me just because you dont like it and feel that it has sullied the face of R.O.D. the TV, but what the hey a flame is still a review so whatever.

The original idea behind this story was to "draw" Michelle as a slightly cruel Dokusensha assassin teamed up with Sunny Wong to hunt down a rogue Dokusensha agent . . . Maggie. But Dokusensha are not the only ones after Maggie when her powers are revealed, and when both sides come to blows all of Hong Kong will be engulfed!

Warning: Contains violence, death, crude language, more violence, and a tiny bit of romance.

Part One

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She snuck up the stairs to her apartment, wanting her very existence to go unnoticed if possible. Her red shirt was ripped in a few places, and there was blood on her right shoulder. If her mother saw it she'd be in trouble, who knew what conclusions the often intoxicated family matriarch would draw from her appearance?

She reached the door, number 777. She remembered when her family had moved in, her father had said "Triple seven, the number for heaven! Our fortunes will be different!" As it turned out fortune had changed. Father had fallen terribly ill and was unable to work. Her older sister had left for college just a few days ago. Though father was still lying in his sick bed (he had been for nearly five months) in the end mother was the only other person really at home.

As the young woman reached the door she opened it slowly, quietly . . .

She opened it just enough to squeeze through, the closed it again with even more care not to make a single noise. She could hear the news playing on the television, mother was either watching it, or had fallen asleep in front of it. The girl hoped it was the latter.

As she crept towards her bedroom she heard the reporter saying "Though there were no fatalities, several people are in critical condition" The girl shuddered and sped up her walk. "Police have no clues as to what might have caused the devastation of the down town library, but are unconvinced by eye witness reports that a giant creature, resembling a chimera, or three headed monster was the culprit."

The girl shuddered, and heard her mother scoff, "A shimera thing? What's this world coming to?"

The girl snuck towards her room even more quietly, but thinking to herself that it most certainly hadn't been a chimera, it had been Cerberus.

"And where have you been?" Her mother barked, not even turning around to look at her.

The girl mumbled a thousand answers in five seconds but none that seemed realistic, so she just said "I was out."

"You were reading." Her mother accused, and she wasn't too far off. "You're always reading. Did you learn anything?"

"Well uh--"

"Of course not." Her mother scoffed, not bothering to look at her, "Your sister studied hard and got into a good college, but you waste your time with any old book you get your hands on, you'll never go to college, and you'll always be here, a burden for me and your poor father."

The girl frowned, but was a little relieved that her mother hadn't turned and looked at the terrible sate she was in. She just mumbled a pitiful "I'm sorry" and rushed off to her room, grabbing a stack of books off the shelf and crawling under her bed. Maybe she wouldn't learn anything, but at least while she read she could forget all the problems in her life.

The people in these books all had happy endings, so maybe if she read enough and believed enough she'd have something happy happen to her too!

Or maybe not . . .

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The two stood outside the office of the Dokusensha officer who would give them their mission briefing, a man and a woman both wearing black, the woman carrying with her a rather stylish suitcase.

They were an odd pair, he stood so tall and by comparison she was terribly small. She had long, golden hair while he had almost none at all, save the mohawk. He wore a pair of dark sun glasses to hide his eyes, while she showed her gorgeous green orbs off to the world.

Agents Sunny Wong and Michelle Chan were terribly different indeed, but Michelle wouldn't let that get in the way of the mission, whatever it may be, so she extended the hand of friendship and offered agent Wong a hand shake, saying "Hi! I'm Michelle Chan! I've worked for Dokusensha for four years now, how about you?"

He stood like a statue and stared right past her at the door, and after a few moments she retracted her hand, feeling just a little insulted. She wondered if maybe he'd fallen asleep under those glasses. She sighed to herself and went back to waiting for that door to open. Waited for her next assignment.

She did not have to wait long, as the door did indeed open and a small pudgy man wearing a strange little hat waved for them to come in. Agent Wong complied without hesitation, even knocking Michelle out of his way as he did so. Michelle frowned at his back and hoped that she wouldn't be asked to work with him for very long.

Inside the office were a pair of comfortable chairs, she flopped down into one and let out a content sigh. This would be the perfect chair to curl up in with a good book!

Agent Wong remained standing, and Michelle wondered for a moment if she should have done the same. But since she was already sitting, she saw no reason to get up.

The fat little officer sat down at a desk in front of them and tapped his head. "Oh my, oh my, agents Wong and Chan, headquarters must really want this job done!" He handed them each a piece of paper, it was a dossier.

The Dokusensha Dossiers were a comprehensive and efficient way to keep track of agents from Dokusensha, and other agencies and orders. It contained a person's picture, a brief biography and a list of habits. The dossier before Michelle however had a picture of a young woman with disorganized black hair, shy brown eyes and blushing cheeks. She didn't seem the secret agent type, but then neither did Michelle really. It had no list of habits, and the biography only said, "likes books".

"Her name is Maggie Mui." The officer said.

Agent Wong examined the paper, then tucked it into his shirt. He turned as if to leave but the officer snapped, "Wait! You do not understand the nature of this mission."

Michelle gave the officer a confused look, "This isn't an assassination?"

The officer shook his head. "You two will work together to find her, and bring her back alive."

"Alive?" Michelle blinked.

"Yes, you see it is a state completely opposite from 'dead'. But use extreme caution, she's terribly dangerous." The officer said.

Michelle frowned at the officer, expecting more information than that, and not terribly opposed to knowing why this Maggie Mui needed to be brought in alive, but apparently the officer wasn't going to volunteer it. She cleared her throat, and when he still said nothing she asked, "What exactly are we dealing with?"

"You've heard of the odd occurrences in Hong Kong?" The officer asked.

"No." Michelle admitted.

"There have been unusual animal sightings, and just yesterday a giant beast tore through the down town area, destroying cars and damaging buildings."

"A Beast Master?" Michelle asked, looking at Maggie's picture. Beast masters were usually wild eyed, dirty and held some resemblance to the beasts they favored, a simian face, exaggerated canine teeth, a beak-like nose. They also tended to proudly display scars on their faces given to them by their animal cohorts, though how a ruined face implied control over the animals was beyond Michelle. This girl's hair was messy but she looked clean otherwise, and had no visible scars.

"No." The officer answered at length, "The animals are usually reported as being albino, or almost completely white. The latest incident had a three headed wolf-like monster that simply fell apart and blew away when it's rampage ended . . . or rather when it got too far away from its creator."

Michelle tapped her finger on her chin, trying to figure out what she might be dealing with. "Is this a new kind of unusual talent?" She asked.

"Mui is a Paper Master." The officer said, sounding a little embarrassed. "Our sources suggest that she lost control of her minion and it went on a rampage. When it got too far away for her to continue holding it together mentally it became ordinary paper again."

"A Paper Master?" Michelle whispered, trying to remember all the Paper Masters she'd eliminated in the past. She couldn't remember any, and she never forgot a victim, so obviously she'd never been assigned a Paper Master before.

"Agent Wong's mastery of paper manipulation should be enough to dispel any minions the target might send your way, especially if, as the down town incident suggests, she has no control over her powers. Your task Agent Chan will be to subdue the target and bring her in."

Michelle nodded, it seemed simple enough, she just wouldn't aim for a vital spot.

"It is imperative that we capture Miss. Mui alive." The officer added, looking at Sunny, "With all of her limbs, and organs intact."

"What about her kidneys? She only needs one of those!" Michelle offered to lighten the mood, realizing too late that it was a rather stupid thing to say.

"Both kidneys intact if you please." The officer grunted, fidgeting with his belt buckle. "I suppose you want to know why you're being sent on this mission?" The officer added to Michelle.

Michelle actually hadn't wondered. Obviously this girl was a danger to Dokusensha, who cared about the 'why' all she needed to worry about was the 'how'. How to kill her targets usually, but now how to avoid killing. She shook her head and said, "When Dokusensha calls, Agent Michelle Chan must answer, regardless of the mission, no matter how dangerous, no matter how difficult, I shall-"

"Yes, yes, good, good. Off you go then, hurry along." The officer said, shooing her out the door.

Michelle blinked, terribly offended that her speech would be cut short, but nodded, saluted and followed her new partner out the door. "How shall we go about this?" She asked, and Sunny Wong just ignored her and headed towards the elevators. "It's going to be terribly difficult to work together if you don't speak. Are you mute?" She asked, agent Wong continued to ignore her. "Deaf then?" She offered, but realized he wasn't likely to hear and answer if he was. She grinned, "Are you shy? Does my stunning beauty rip the very words from your mouth?"

It was meant as a taunt, and it worked. Wong looked back and raised an eyebrow at her, it was the biggest response she'd gotten from him since they'd met! Progress!

"If words escape you, then sign language will be fine." Michelle said graciously.

Sunny grunted and made a hand gesture that Michelle supposed could be considered universally understood sign language.

Still, her smile wavered only a little bit and she said, "I can see it'll be a pleasure working with you." Closing her eyes in surrender and shaking her head in defeat she silently added to herself 'thank heavens we don't have to pose as husband and wife for this venture!' When she opened her eyes Agent Wong had disappeared.

She wasn't sorry to see him gone, but she did wonder how they were going to work together if he wasn't going to say anything.

------

"Fuck yeah . . ." Tokai whispered as he saw the pair of rich girls.

"I dont like this, they look like they've got money . . . but they're girls." Brock said.

"So?" The fiery eyed Tokai demanded.

"Women always spend all their money." Brock said.

"The fuck ever man, we just grab the damn purses!" Tokai said.

"Fenrir won't like this." Brock added.

"But you ain't with Fenrir, are you? You're with Tokai, and Tokai says we take the damn purses!"

Tokai was tall, he had fiery red hair, and fiery red eyes, he was well built though Brock had more mass on him. The muscleheaded kid with dirt smeared in several places of his clothing and more than a little on his face could probably bend steel with his pinkies if he wanted to, but he backed down from Tokai's ire.

Tokai aproached the two young rich girls. They were blondes, it made them idiots. He liked idiot girls.

They were easy to steal from.

They were even checking him out, which made it easier. Brock slammed into them from behind and ran off really fast. Tokai's hands shot out like lightning, he took their purses and walked away slowly, calmly.

The girls realized their purses were gone of course and pointed after Brock, "That guy stole our bags! Someone stop him!"

Tokai snickered to himself, "Fucking women." He said to himself and ran like hell.

To Be Continued!

Author's Note 2: Some characters here, like Fenrir and Tokai also appear in the story Charlotte's Web 2 by GrimmZ, Fenrir is originally my character and Tokai is originally GrimmZ's, we worked together to make the story line for this fic.