Go read the prologue first, not that it clears much up. :P

Midori the First: The Ballad... well ok, The Ditty of Midori. 
by Mark Doherty (mdoherty@uq.net.au)

The Streetfighter elements are copyright of Capcom, no disrespect is intended.
SMLUFT is a group effort, the other characters are copyright their respective
creators, and some disrepect is intended. ^_^ Midori is mine, so every 
disrespect to myself is fully intended.

Go on, C&C. You know you want to, even if just to ask what this is all
about.

+++++

The dolphin squeaked.

"What's that, dolphin-san? Timmy in trouble?" Midori patted the head of
the dolphin as she floated in the sea, a kilometre from the coast of Eastern
Japan.

The dolphin squeaked again.

"I sorry, I am not that type of girl." Midori stated, blushing. "I love animals
a lot, but no love them _that_ much."

The dolphin squeaked yet again, managing to sound annoyed.

"Oh. Sorry. Thought dolphin-san eeeeked instead of eeeeeeked. Honest mistake.
You want know why I want to hitch lift from you?"

The dolphin nodded.

"It long story. So..." Midori waved her hands in a complex pattern, as strobing
lights backlit her, and tacky music blared in the background. The dolphin
looked around, puzzled as to where the special effects were coming from.

"Handy..." the young girl breathed, "Flashback...", she continued, "Power..."

  -= Eighteen Years Ago =-

Princess Yasashii, magical girl, leader of the Kind Patrol, upholder of truth 
and beauty and love and niceness, and originator of the Blazing Energy Beam to 
the Groin attack looked at her teammate, Princess Kichigai. Kichigai, against
the advice of her teammates, had gone off alone to face their current-season-
nemesis, Yabu the Demon Botanist.

"You mean that filthy demon defiled you?" Yasashii gasped, clutching her 
trademarked Cutesy Zappo Rod in reflex horror.

"I wouldn't say defiled..." Kichigai mumbled, twiddling her forefingers 
together.

"You mean he tied you up and lavished your young body with skin tingling ice, 
as sweat ran down your nubile--" Yasashii coughed, regaining control.

"Well, sort of. Except I tied him down..."

The wedding was fated to be a real headache from the start. Marrying a magical
girl and a demon was bound to involve some conflicting views. Finding a middle 
path between "I swear my soul to darkness" and "I promise to be kind to puppy 
dogs and small children, no matter how annoying they are", for the marriage 
vows proved to be one of the smaller hurdles. Having the groom insist that his 
special batch of tentacled plant monsters should attend, as another example, 
didn't go down well with the bridal party. And when, in a reflex action, 
Princess Hageshii vaporised the priest that the demons chose, there was, quite
frankly, hell to pay.

But finally, the big day arrived, and the magical girl married the demon
botanist. Things went okay until the best man tried to eat one of the 
bridesmaids.  The entire affair went rapidly downhill from there. What 
happened at the bouquet-tossing is best left totally unmentioned, and the
entire reception incident has been stricken from public records.

  -= Seventeen Years Ago =-

"OH MY GOD!" the doctor gasped.

"What is it?" Kichigai asked desperately, panting from the pain and exertion
of childbirth. "What's wrong with my child?"

"Absolutely nothing." the doctor said, disgusted. "Here I was, expecting to 
be ripped asunder by some halfling baby demon from the netherworld, and you
turn out to have a perfectly normal baby girl. Unbelievable. What are you
going to call her?"

Kichigai smiled. "Midori."

  -= Ten Years Ago =-

Hikaru was big for his age, and a bully. Midori was small for her age, and 
truly a strange child who didn't fit in. Draw the lines yourself.

Midori nursed her bruised elbow as Hikaru stood over her, laughing. They were
in a sheltered area of the schoolyard, a dusty little place where the 
teachers couldn't see. 

She fought back the tears and looked up at her tormentor. What had her father
said about a situation like this? Fight with dirt? What had he meant by that?
Fight with dirt...

Understanding lit her face, and she punched the ground. The dirt spewed up,
forming into a dozen humanoid figures. After a second or two, the figures
gained definition until they were full-colour replicas of her. And none of
them looked too happy.

Hikaru gulped as he was surrounded.

  -= Later That Night =-

"Honey," Midori's father admonished, "I told you to _fight dirty_, not fight
with dirt."

"Oh." Midori scratched her head and then smiled. "Still work though, no? He no
try push me round again."

  -= This Is Not A Subliminal Message =-

"Wahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! I have found you at last, Princess
Kichigai!"

"Lord Malignant! You're back! And you've been practising your evil laugh!"

"Yes, do you like it? You put a bit of emphasis on the Wa, and then you get
into a rhythm with the Ha bits by... ahem. Anyway, after all these years, I
have caught you unawares, at home no less!"

"Honey, who's this?" 

"Oh, hello dear. Lord Malignant, ruler of the Slightly Shady Fiefdom, say hello
to my husband, Yabu the Demon Botanist."

"Just call me Yabu. Nice to meet you."

"A pleasure. Sorry to just come over and be a bother, but I'm here to kill your
wife."

Yabu turned to his wife. "I thought you'd retired?"

"Work has a tendency to follow me home, I--"

"Momma?" A young Midori walked in, oblivious to the tense situation as she
was currently staring at a small beetle that was running around on her arm.
"Look, I just find it! I call her Blackie! Can I keep her? Please?"

"Honey, we're having grownup talk here. Perhaps--"

Lord Malignant shook his head. "What is it with you magical girls and the
annoyingly cutesy kids? Aren't ANY of you diabetic!? Look," he grabbed the
beetle, "it's a bug. What sort of kid wants to keep a bug as a pet?" He 
tossed it to the ground and crushed it with his well polished boot. "Now
then, back to the killing bit. I... why are you backing away like that?"

Midori, her eyes almost swimming in tears, was glowing all-over with a 
greenish-brown aura. She stared at the crushed body of her beetle, then she
looked up at the man who had killed it. Her eyes narrowed and hardened.
"You killed her."

Lord Malignant turned and looked down at the kid, staring death in the eyes.
"Damn." he muttered. "Why does it always have to be the kids? Just once I'd 
like to be killed off by some crotchety old--"

Midori's aura started to seep into the ground, as she screamed out the name
of her fallen comrade. "Blackie!"

If it wasn't the first time a volcano formed and erupted in a house, it was
certainly the most impressive example of one.

  -= revewoH lanimilbuS sI enO sihT =-

Kichigai and her husband, Yabu the Demon Botanist("Just call me Yabu") looked
at the smoking wreck of their house as lava poured down onto the rosebushes.
As Yabu winced at the destroyed foliage, Kichigai turned and whispered to him
"We are never telling her what REALLY happened to her pet goldfish."

Yabu nodded.

  -= Two Years Ago =-

Midori looked at the pamphlet in her hand - a rallying cry for a local 
environmental group, and then at her schoolbag. It was time for a decision - 
she couldn't help the planet and keep up her schooling at the same time. 

Her eyebrows furrowed. There were plenty of money-grubbing executives, plenty
of simpy little office girls, and, to tell the truth, more than plenty of
magical girls running around. But there weren't enough people who truly and
really wanted to help save the planet. Earth was slowly spinning into a toxic
nightmare from which it would not recover - unless something was done soon. A 
thinning ozone layer, polluted water streams, the time bombs of nuclear 
reactors, uncaring companies _still_ illegally dumping their toxic wastes 
because it was cheaper... Cheaper!

She scrunched the pamphlet in her hands. It was about to become a lot more
expensive. She dropped the paper onto her bedroom floor, before she turned
and strode purposefully out of the room, ignoring her schoolbag.

A minute later she rushed back, picked up the crushed pamphlet, smoothed it out
and placed it in the small recycle bin next to her bed. 

  -= Two Seconds Ago. Now It's Three. Four. Stop Reading These, Would You? =-

"And so finally, I kill the clone-type person over at Hakai. After stopping to 
punish a motorist for using leaded fuel, I come here." Midori finished as she 
paddled around in the sea. "So dolphin-san, you help, yes?"

The dolphin snored, a feat which probably would have fascinated any passing
marine biologist.

"Dolphin-san?"

The dolphin shook its head, blinked blurrily, and then eeked.

"You promise to take me if I no give more flashbacks? Ok!"

The dolphin sighed in relief, turned, and offered its dorsal fin to the girl.
It eeked a question.

"How far? Oh, could not be more than a few hundred kilometres."

The dolphin sighed again, but not from relief this time. 

"I know. Let's sing tunes about saving the Earth to pass time! I learn this
one from some overseas friends. Still not sure what it all mean. But...
o/ Ohhh... there was a bulldozer, 
   It was going to pillage the planet and run over the grass.
   But I took conviction from Gaia...
   And I shoved that 'dozer right up the driver's-- o/"

The dolphin started to cry as it swam away, the magical girl bobbing along
after, singing despite getting several mouthfuls of seawater. And after all
that, she hadn't even told him why she wanted to go to this island of hers. 
The dolphin sighed yet again. It was going to be a long trip. 

************  
Mark Doherty  -  mdoherty@uq.net.au
My spam/fanfics are at - 
http://www.tass.org/~mdoherty/index.html

"Time grows short, but I remain tall."