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Disclaimer: I do not own Cowboy Bebop. It is the creation of
Hajime Yadate, and belongs to Sunrise productions. Oh, yeah, and the story title
comes from the incredible Lou Armstrong song of the same name.
Rating: Pg. Some parts Pg 13 for violence or language. Although I barely use harsh language in my writing.
Author’s note: This is my first Bebop fic and only second anime attempt, so feedback is appreciated. I am still relatively new to Cowboy Bebop, so fans might find some things wrong. If that happens let me know and I’ll correct it! I am still learning about the Bebop world. Comment or questions can be emailed or left in the guestbook.
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************
************
“My luck is so bad that if I
bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.”
~Ed Furgol
*************
“Are you sure?” came the voice over the speaker.
“Edward is suuuuure,” Ed said as if it was obvious.
“Alright, alright.”
Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky 4th cut the transmission and looked over at Ein. The Welsh corgi stared up at Ed and his ears picked up.
“Ed knows Ein. Jet-person cannot hear anymore. Jet-person is getting to ooold.”
“Edward is hungry,” Ed said as she rose to walk, arms flailing, towards the refrigerator.
The communication light blinked again, but Ed was gone. Ein flipped the switch with his nose and barked.
“Great,”
a dry voice floated out, “out of the two I didn’t want to get, it has to
be one of them.”
Ein ran toward the refrigerator barking. Ed looked up from rummaging, through nothing really, at Ein as the date dog came running in.
“What is it Ein?” Edward asked in a relatively normal moment.
Ein barked again.
“A message, message, yea!” the red head cat like girl somehow figured out.
Edward ran back to the other room followed by Ein.
“Hello? Anyone? Jet? What is going on there? Is anyone there, besides that mutt?”
“Edward is here!” Ed said sitting down.
A sigh came over the speaker. Ed switched on the video feed.
“Ed, where is Jet?” Faye
asked.
“Faye-Faye is coming back to the Bebop, Bebop! Bebop, Bebop, like Faye-Faye!” Ed ranted.
“Edward!” Faye growled, not in the mood.
Edward went on for a short while unfazed, before she finally answered Faye.
“Jet-person is with Spike-person.”
“What have you got Ed?” Faye asked.
*************
“Are you sure?” Jet Black asked skeptically.
“Edward is suuuuure,” came the annoyed voice over the speaker.
“Alright, alright,” he answered.
“Well, this is it,” Jet said turning to Spike Spiegel, “he’s using the card in that store.”
Spike nodded in response, but didn’t say anything.
Jet glanced up toward the sky. He could just picture them walking out with the bounty head, and there was Faye swooping down in the Redtail to make their lives more complicated. No, Jet shook his head. It was bad luck to jinx yourself before a job. Their luck was bad enough as it was and they needed the money.
“Well, you ready Spike?” the man asked looking to the side.
There was no one beside him.
“Uh, Spike?”
Jet looked around at the empty street and sighed.
One of them was enough to take care of.
**************
Spike Spiegel pushed open the convenience store door and walked inside. He walked passed a short blonde man at the counter and nodded to the guy in greeting. The reading came up in the glasses. Yes, that was him all right. One Bernard Larson, wanted for some sort of extortion or other, it really didn’t matter. What did matter is that the reward was 5 million woolongs. Spike lowered the glasses and looked around.
‘Where was Jet?’ he thought.
To answer Spike’s question, Jet walked through the door shooting him a dry look. The larger man casually walked over near Spike and glanced at the shelf in front of him.
“Nice of you to finally show up,” Spike commented quietly.
Jet simply sighed again and rolled his eyes. Why did he bother?
The man at the counter headed for the door before Jet could reply. The two of them slowly moved to follow the man out. As soon as they were outside Jet glanced around.
The street was still empty, that was a good sign.
The man walked over to a red car parked at the corner of one of the side alleys. There was another man already sitting in the vehicle. Whistling to himself, the blonde man moved to open the car door, but halted as he heard a noise. He froze and turned slowly around to find two men behind him and one holding a gun on him.
“For an extortionist, you would’ve thought the guy would have known better then to use his own money card. Especially with a bounty on his head. You, out of the car!” the lanky one with the gun yelled to the guy sitting in the car.
The big one shook his head in mock disapproval and then turned to Larson.
“Bernard Larson, your worth 5 million woolongs, you know that?” the big one asked.
Spike and Jet received an answer they didn’t expect to get. The blonde man looked offended at the question.
“Five million? Is that all?”
Spike and Jet looked at each other a bit confused.
“Just what exactly did you do anyway?” Jet asked confused.
Bernard Larson smirked at Jet, and the big man could feel his temperature rising.
“Nothing you’ll live to know about,” he commented casually as the guy from the car came to stand next him.
Spike couldn’t help it. He just had to say something to that. Unfortunately for him, though, he never got the chance as a ship came barreling out of nowhere. He half expected to see the Redtail, but to his surprise it was another ship.
A ship with weapons.
The blue craft swooped down and opened fire. All four men bolted in different directions with pieces of building and car following. Spike couldn’t tell if the pilot was after Jet and him, the bounty head, or both, because the pilot definitely lacked delicacy.
Spike ducted down next to the nearest building, while Jet ended up across the alley.
“What are you doing over there?” Spike called lightly across the street.
Jet flinched as a bullet ricochetted close to Spike’s head. The big man saw the bounty head run for the alley and signaled to his partner that the guy was running. A mistake he realized a second later, as the lanky man stood suddenly, bullets blazing around him, and ran after the blonde man. Jet rubbed his face with his right hand and sighed. Why him?
“What are you doing?!” Jet yelled after his partner.
He was too late; there would be no stopping his reckless partner now. Well, there was still the nameless guy left, he thought. And there just might be a bounty to go with whatever name the man had.
Jet rose and ducked back again as the ship opened-fire once more. He slowly peered around the corner and to his amazement the blue ship stopped its barrage.
“Uh?” he thought out loud.
The answer presented itself a moment later as the Redtail came soaring towards the blue ship.
“Now she shows up!” Jet mumbled.
Forgetting his earlier thoughts against Faye showing up, Jet used the chance to make a move for the other guy. The man saw Jet running towards him and took off.
“Why do they always have to do that?” Jet yelled as he speed up.
**************
“They better appreciate this!” Faye said as she piloted the Redtail towards the other ship.
The blue ship was smaller, but faster than the Redtail, and it turned easily towards Faye. She banked the Redtail to the left as the other ship opened fire on her now. She swerved around the roof of a building and came about firing back at the other ship.
“This also counts for 40%,” she said through gritted teeth.
**************
Spike grimaced as one of the bullets sliced through his upper left arm. Well, nothing to be done about it now, he thought. Bernard Larson cut sharply to the right a few building up and the bounty hunter sprinted after him. Spike slowed before he rounded the corner and looked around the edge of the building. The blonde man was attempting to scale the alley fence.
Spike Spiegel, going for the hands on approach, holstered his weapon as he closed the distance between the two. He grabbed a hold of the blonde man’s feet and pulled. The man slipped from the fence and dropped unceremoniously to the ground.
“We can do this the easy way, or the fun way,” Spike said looming over the man.
The blonde man sprung up at Spike and he easily sidestepped him.
“Looks like it’s the fun way.”
**************
Jet grappled the nameless man from behind and the two went crashing down to the ground. To Jet’s surprise the man managed to roll out of his grasp and sprung to his feet. The big man rolled up to his feet also. The man rounded on Jet and attacked. The guy was much faster than he looked and Jet had a time of it just trying to dodge the punches. He managed to avoid most, well some, of them anyway. His own swipes only connected once in a while.
Right now, Jet wished he had gone after the other guy, and let Spike have this one.
***************
The other ship rolled out of her line of fire without taking any damage, but this didn’t daunt Faye, it made her angry. She doggedly pursued the blue ship towards the ground still firing.
**************
Spike had refrained from attacking the guy yet, and just let him smash into things as he attempted to hit the bounty hunter. He was growing tired of this lame fight, though, and was about to hit the man, when a rain of bullets swept down at the two. Both men forgot about each other and leapt for cover.
“Jesus Faye!” Spike cursed as he landed hard on his wounded arm.
The sudden movement was disorientating making black dots dance playfully across Spike’s vision.
**************
Jet stumbled backwards from the impact of the last punch. This fight was starting to get irritating now, Jet thought. He was glad he knew how to take a beating. On impulse Jet grabbed for the guy. The unexpected move took the man by surprise and the larger man wrapped his arms around the smaller man’s waist.
Before Jet could enjoy his small victory or slam the guy against something, bullets sprayed down at them.
Abandoning the fight for self-preservation the pair dodged out of the way.
“Watch it Faye!” Jet yelled to the sky as he ran for cover.
************
“Your mine now!” Faye cried as she followed the blue ship towards the ground.
The buildings blocked the ship’s ways to the sides and it was too large to fit up the street. The blue ship was efficiently pinned in with Faye closing in from the top.
The pilot once again proved how nimble the ship was and to Faye’s horror, the blue ship suddenly pulled up.
Right towards Faye in the Redtail!
The pilot was nuts! Faye thought and for a brief second it felt like she was trying to chase down Spike. Reacting on instinct, Faye pulled up and tried to bank to the side. She almost managed to clear the building, but the Redtail’s undercarriage clipped the top. The jolt nearly knocked Faye out of her seat and she struggled to keep the ship from crashing into any more buildings.
Faye gained control of the Redtail and breathed a sigh of relief. The blue ship was already speeding out of there and she knew she wouldn’t be able to catch it.
Well, there probably goes some woolongs, she thought dryly.
***************
Jet and the nameless man looked up and their eyes widened as large chunks of building fell from the sky. Jet managed to clear the area, but the other man wasn’t as lucky. One of the large pieces fell directly on the guy and Jet flinched.
He sighed again.
Bounties were usually less if the person was dead. If this guy even had one, he thought miserable.
Hopefully Spike had had more luck.
**************
Regaining his senses, Spike gritted his teeth, and sat up. To his relief, Larson wasn’t rising much faster and looked even more stunned than he was.
Spike rose a bit shakily and walked over to stand above the blonde man.
“Alright Larson, it’s over. Come on,” Spike said wearily.
“Is it?” a throaty female voice said behind him, followed by a very definite click.
In that split second Spike prepared himself.
Then it happened.
The bullet slammed into Spike’s back with enough force to rip him off his feet and the ground rushed up to met him. He hit the ground face first and the familiar white-hot pain shot up to his head and all the way down to his legs. Spike’s vision tilted and swayed crazily and began to darken.
Somewhere out in the rapidly dimming and confusing world a deeper shadow fell over the bounty hunter and he tried to turn dark eyes up to the source. The shadow knelt into his line of sight and long dark hair cascaded down to gentle brush against his cheek. The hair was cool to the touch and already the searing pain was beginning to fade. Spike briefly got a flash of the face of a woman with steel gray eyes. In Spike’s semi conscious state she had the face of an angel, a fallen angel. A voice drifted through the air like a memory on the edge of a dream.
“Bernard doesn’t belong to you. Better luck next time cowboy.”
Then the dark curtain lifted up and disappeared.
The bounty hunter’s eyes followed the movement up and proceeded to keep going as they rolled back into his head.