Aging Or Lack Thereof
An Ed x Jet Fanfic
Hey all! Tankou001 here with a new story. "Aging Or Lack Thereof" is a story where Ed, and Jet meet ten years after spike dies at the end of the series. I never knew Ed's actual age in the series, but I assumed she was twelve. That makes her 22 in this story. As for Jet I recall him at one point saying that he was 38 so he would be 48 in this ^_^
For any of you who are getting the idea that Jet, and Ed are too distant in age I have the remedy for that in the story, and it ties into the whole thing, and the namer is a dead giveaway that there is stuff at work too ^_^
Normally I use the classic Japanese name styling where the given name comes last, but it seems better in this story to have the western style of naming
Let's start on Earth ^_^
Chapter One: An Old Friend
Jet wandered groggily down the stairs toward the station. It was a hard run for a bounty hunter like him. Fay Valentine had run off just three years before to get into no good, and spike had died ten years previous. Jet, of course, was getting on in years, and that alone made him a less likely person to bring in the cash. As far as Jet knew Ein, and Ed had left ten years ago as well after Ed's father who was studying meteor showers or something like that. Whatever kept Jet going even he had no idea, but there was something inside of him that would just not let him give up. Forty-eight, and still Jet was working his ass off for minor bounties that he could hardly keep up with. His latest bounty assignment was on Earth, and Jet knew very well that nothing good ever came from Earth.
Jet looked up at the old ship Bebop, and sighed. What was he to do about it. Bebop had slowly decayed in the last ten years. No part on the open market would be made for Bebop anymore, and Jet was about ready to just give up his career, and retire. He had enough of a regular cash flow to keep himself alive, though not quite comfortable for the rest of his life. Some of the Jupiter police force wanted him for a desk job. Why not? All of his old partners were there anyway.
A sudden bark could be heard at the docking station, and a small dog came up to Jet. Oh how the dog reminded Jet of old Ein, who was no doubt too old to really run anymore. It was a welsh corgi, and had all of the same markings, exactly identical. It's rear wagged back, and forth a bit as it tried to wag the tail that it lacked. Slowly the old man that was Jet leaned down to pet the young dog, and a call could be heard. "Ein! Get over here, you mischievous dog!" A giggling woman with wild, mid length, red hair ran up. Small framed glasses adorned her face, and she wore a small cord around her neck that held a flash drive, and an adapter for some sort of display. "I'm really sorry, sir. He gets into trouble a lot. I was just taking him out to play, and he ran off toward you. Please excuse the disrespect."
Jet looked at the woman for a bit, and shook his head in disbelief. She looked exactly like Ed, only with a much nicer body, and a definite addition to the chest department. She wore a white lab coat loosely on her shoulders, but aside from that she only wore skin tight black shorts, and a white shirt that cut off just above her belly button. "It's... It's no problem... In fact, could I talk to you for a bit? Maybe you could thank me by getting me some coffee, or something like that."
The woman only smiled, and raised an eyebrow, but shrugged shortly thereafter, and nodded. "Alright. I know a good place around here that serves coffee. My name is Francois. I am a researcher for the Earth government." Francois held her hand out to shake Jet's, letting go of Ein, and letting the dog sit down finally.
Jet reached out with his old hand, and shook Francois' hand, and smiled. "My name is Jet. I am a bounty hunter. Sorry if it seems strange, but you seem so familiar. About ten years back I knew a little girl named Edward. She named herself because she had no real family, and was the best hacker I knew, but what perks my interests most of all is your dog. I used to own a dog with the same name, but he went off with Ed ten years back. Of course this puppy couldn't possibly be him."
Francois looked a bit nervous, and shook her head, smiling. "Of course not. A dog that old would hardly be able to walk, and a Corgi like Ein here only has a fifteen year life expectancy normally. At least we see eye to eye on that. I wish I could help you out with this... Ed, of yours, but I can't say I ever knew someone with such a weird girl name."
Francois slowly led Jet to her noted cafe, and the two sat down at a small table. It seemed a nice cafe for something that was on Earth, but Jet really was amazed at how alike Francois was to the old Ed that he remembered so well. She looked about the same age, and everything, she even had the same kind of dog. However, that couldn't be the old Ein, and Francois had even said that she didn't know of any Ed. "So how long have you been working for the government? Care to give out anything that you do in your job?"
Ed blushed a bit, and shook her head. "The information that you would be asking about is classified. I do not have the permission to tell you about any of it. I can tell you, however, that it is for the good of this world, and all of humanity. My employer is a really nice guy, and helps me out when he can. I have been working with the government for only three years, but it all is a great thing. To tell the truth I used to be wanted, and then after that I was a bounty hunter for some time, but now I live a fully legit life. You know, the single home life that every young woman has. Dog, government apartment, dinner every night with salad, and main course for one; wine for four."
Francois laughed a bit as Jet's booming laugh echoed through the cafe. "Can't say I don't know where you are coming from, Francois. I once was a policeman before I came to be a bounty hunter. I am thinking of turning in the whole bounty hunter deal, however, and just becoming a desk job policeman again though. Got some friends on Jupiter that want me back, and I will be hard pressed to go for a crap organization that won't like me. I am going back to Jupiter after this run, and turning in my bounty hunting boots. This old man can't handle any more."
Francois looked a bit depressed, but nodded anyway. She sighed deeply, her nearly bursting décolletage bouncing a bit as her lungs emptied. "I guess I can see what you mean. After all age has to happen to all of us. Maybe some day someone will find a way for all of that not to happen. Maybe we could just live eternally, and never have to grow old, and die. Still I suppose sometimes it is better to grow old. After all, they say with time comes great wisdom."
Jet shook his head, the little bit of hair that remained on his head shaking in a wispy kind of display. "I would give wisdom for youth right now over anything else."
Francois noticed Jet's arm, and legs, and shook her head, lowering her head to the point that her chin rested on her linked hands. "You know I could introduce you to someone who could clear up those clunky old limbs. The plastic surgery they have these days is amazing. Perhaps you could even get a limb replacement. I know a government man that can give you some real arms, and legs with no scarring. The procedure is painless, and the recovery time is negligible. It would be fully legal, and I could maybe cut the price down on it. After all if you are, or were a government worker before, and soon coming up you get a lot of bonuses from the interplanetary nations agreement."
Jet shook his head again, and sipped at his coffee. "I prefer these old things... Nostalgia, and all keeps me going, you know. Besides, it's not like they would be my old arm, or legs. I am fine with these." Jet stood up, and a blast was heard a ways away. Jet turned his head, and saw a great explosion at the station that Bebop was at. "Son of a Bitch! I am sorry Francois, I have to go!"
Jet high tailed it out of the cafe, and ran toward the station. He noticed a small ship heading away from the station shooting guns blazing, and when he got to Bebop the ship was totaled. The hammerhead was inside, and also in roughly the same state, and a streak of anger rushed through Jet at that moment. Jet screamed out at the flying ship far off into the distance, and heard Francois' voice head toward him. Suddenly his whole body tensed, and Jet fell to his knees. Shooting pains flew through Jet's left arm, and chest, and he blacked out.
Jet awoke a few hours later in a hospital bed, Francois holding Ein in her arms beside the bed. "Jet! Are you alright? You had a heart attack so I called the police, and they brought you here. It's a government medical facility. You are stabilized now, but you really should ease up on the running. You're too old it seems to be so active."
Jet sat up groggily, and shook his head, looking around him to appraise his surroundings. The room was stark white, and there were a few various medical things on the walls, and on a nearby table, but that was it. "I have to get those guys..."
Francois put her hand on Jet's chest, and shook her head. "Those assholes are gone, Jet... They just destroyed bebop, and got away. We got a license of them, but that is all."
Jet looked at Francois, and shook his head again. Maybe he misheard, but he was sure that she had told him that they had destroyed bebop. He had never remembered telling her the name of his ship, and by the time he got to it the paint had been entirely ripped away by the flames. That was beside the point, however. Jet knew that only his bounty would pull something. Bounty hunters were listed, and their ships were too. Any ship that would come up in a station would be targeted. "I am going."
Jet stood up, his raw strength still present enough to overpower a young woman like Francois. He moved to the door, and let himself out, Francois sitting back in the room dumbstruck. It took him three hours to find the ship on the screens, and four more to get to them through civilian transport, but he got there. Finally he found the Bounty heads themselves, and smiled. He had more than just the bounty on his mind now. If he had to kill them it wouldn't be a total loss. One of the men was laughing, and the other three were joking as well, talking about how they had trashed the Bebop.
Jet turned a corner after getting close in, the warehouse that the bounty heads had parked their ship in making a good place to hide about. He grabbed a bounty head, and brought him back, the other bounty heads quickly noticing as the man screamed before Jet punched his lights out with the hard metal arm that he had on his left side "Who is back there? Get out here now with your hands up!" Jet was ready for this, and had climbed up to a crate above the men, and jumped down atop one of them. He swore he heard a hard crunching noise under him, but the man would surely pull through. If he didn't Jet would have to kill him again for not being alive to turn in after all.
Two more men stood, and opened fire on jet, but a large net of some sort flew out of nowhere, and tangled one of the bounty heads to uselessness. Knowing he was shit out of luck the last bounty head turned to run, and Jet made pursuit, not bothering to question that the man before this one had been caught by a flying rogue net. The last man turned, Jet followed, and saw as he turned that the man had but one thing to do. The hand of the last bounty head flicked at the wrist, and a beeping noise was heard. He smiled, Jet turned on his heel, and started to run, and then a great explosion ripped through Jet's ears, his body burned, his ears bled from the blast of concussive force that hit him. He blacked out yet again.
Jet awoke. The world was cloudy. Everything was hazy, and as he turned his head around lazily he noted that he was not in any heaven that he had ever heard of. It looked a lot more like a med tank in fact, rather than heaven, or hell. A mask was over his face, and a few cords stuck through his hair into the top of his head. Wait... Hair? Slowly Jet brought a hand through the med tank fluid to look at it, and saw that it was very young... Or at least far younger than it had been previous to the explosion that must have out him it the med tank he now lay in. There was a small window above his face, and ever so slowly the screen that covered it opened, and Francois' face peered in, concern filling her expression. Jet used his already raised hand to wave briefly at her, and smiled through his mask. Francois looked surprised, and then waved, an endearing smile running across her face. Slowly she closed the screen, and a voice called out in Jet's head "Jet, can you hear me? Just speak into your breather mask if you can."
Jet noticed the voice as Francois' voice, and began to speak. "Hear you loud, and clear Francois. Where am I? What happened, and most of all, why am I so young?"
"I suppose there is no reason to keep secrets anymore." Francois spoke out to Jet, "I guessed you may have possibly gotten this earlier, but I am Ed from Bebop ten years ago. In fact I still go by Ed with all of my work friends. I go by Francois with civilians though. I didn't lie about my job, though. I do work with the government. I work in what we call human preservation, though in truth it is closer to human strengthening. We work with Human DNA to make Humans younger, older, stronger, weaker, and so on. I couldn't tell you about it before, but since you are now directly involved with it it would go against human rights to not tell you." Ed rolled her eyes, and giggled a bit as though she really didn't care a thing about Human Rights at all.
"So you are telling me that you made me younger?" Jet spoke out to her. "How much younger am I, Ed?" In truth Jet was freaking out a bit. He knew that he had been getting old, and a bit of years taken off were okay he guessed, but he knew that he was radically different. What had all happened?
Ed looked over at something to the side, and then looked back at Jet. "Jet... We are getting some serious stress readings. Are you alright?" Jet Shook his head. Ed sighed, and lowered her head closer to the glass. "It's alright Jet, you are, at most twenty-five years younger. That's twenty-three; one year older than I am. You've been put back in your prime to fight another day. Now you can live your life again like I know you would want to."
Jet shook his head a bit more. Twenty-three was very young comparatively. Couldn't Ed have just shaved off the last ten years? Still a whole new sensation came when a twitch was felt in Jet's legs. Wait, legs? Jet shook around a bit, and Ed looked at him worried through the glass as if asking what was wrong. "What did you do to my legs?"
Ed smiled, and straightened up, looking at a clipboard that she pulled out from outside the view of the glass opening. "Your mechanical legs were highly damaged, and with our technology we instead replaced your legs with real ones. The lab here makes replacement body parts as well as many other items that can be placed on humans, and animals alike. I think Ein has gone through four hearts already. After all ten years does some work on a dog like him. Anyway we also gave you a new arm, but it isn't a real one. I wanted to keep some of the old you intact although I suppose the way you are now Is the old you, isn't it?" Ed giggled a bit at this. "Your new arm is made of a high density alloy that, unlike your old arm, is ultralight and has much greater force behind it. Where you could only put enough force in the last arm to shatter a skull if you had a lucky punch this one will tear through solid steel if you want it to. The arm also is a hyper sensitive model which means that after the programming is done you will be able to feel through it, and even have warmth circulating through it. It's a prototype as of now, but we are hoping to get it out on the market soon enough."
Jet sighed into his breather mask, and smiled. "So how long do I have in this tank?" Knowing what kind of damage he must have taken to have all of his limbs nearly blown off Jet guessed that he probably had a few weeks or more.
"Two hours..." Jet looked at Ed as though she was joking. "What? I said you have two hours. We were only waiting for you to wake up really... We just have to do some waking tests, and after that you can come out, and meet the crew. We also managed to save one of the bounty heads if you really want him. He isn't the big one, however, and I doubt you will need to work in bounty hunting from now on." Jet again looked at Ed funny, "After we did all of this for you I am sure you think that you will end up like Faye-Faye, and have a huge debt to pay off, but it is quite the opposite. You will from this point forward be getting paid to try out that new body of yours. I'm no expert in PR, or money management, but given your personal condition, and the fact that you are trying out so very many prototype models I would say that you would be paid over a million woolongs a day for a good five years, or until you prove to weaken what you have been given. Full benefits apply to all of these things as well, and you will be housed, and furnished as though you were a scientist here at the lab." Jet's eyes went wide, and Ed simply closed the screen again.
Two hours later Jet felt the light of the room hit him when he was let out of the Med Tank. The room was bright, and white all over. It was the tell tale scene of a clean environment. Ed came over to Jet, and placed her gloved hand on his shoulder, leading Jet to a cleaning facility where he was bathed, treated, shot up, and checked over by machines for about fifteen minutes before he was allowed to leave the area. After he left the cleaning facility he was led to an outfitting area where he was given a set of civilian clothing that fit him, and where he also noticed that he had been standing in front of Ed stark naked for a good amount of time. This did not sit well in his head, but he didn't dwell on it for too long as he was ushered to a mirror to look himself over.
There he was, back at the age of twenty-three. His arm was the only unfamiliar thing to the form as he had not yet attained the metal arm at that age. A full head of thick black hair covered his scalp, and a muscular, tan figure was well covered by a dress shirt, and corduroy pants. All he needed was a fedora to seem like an old fashioned mobster. It was almost pleasant. The left hand that stuck from the outfit was a bright metal, almost white, though it contained a touch of silver in it. It was seamless, or so it seemed, but Jet had no doubt that micro seams held the metallic arm together. He could feel the very air currents that ran across it too, and was amazed to find that the minute movements that had been long unusable by him with his previous arm were fully restored in this one.
"You know, from here you look pretty sharp." Ed's voice came from behind Jet who had not even noticed her reflection in the mirror. "I'd say that you are looking pretty good for forty-eight, wouldn't you?"
Jet smiled, and nodded. "Ya I suppose I do, don't I?" Jet's voice was still gruff like before, but now it was less aged. His voice was less scarred from yelling, and smoking. "I suppose I should thank you for all of this. Thanks a bunch for giving me a second chance, Ed."
Ed shook her head, and giggled. "You really are a silly guy. I didn't do this for the company, or for you... I did this for myself. The company that I work for would normally hate me for this, but we needed a person in dire trouble who had no chance of surviving for the whole experimentation process on the first place. I am getting Kudos for this. Still the real reason I did it was because I wanted to live the old bebop life again. Ten years ago I remember everything so vividly. Nowadays things are so boring I can hardly remember what I did yesterday, or if it held any meaning at all. I wanted you, and Spike, and Faye-Faye to be back, and take me away from this place so very many times. You shouldn't thank me, Jet. I did this selfishly."
Jet's metal hand placed itself on Ed's shoulder, and the former old man smiled wide. "Don't worry about it, Ed. You were family to me once. I have reason to thank an old friend for living on the old ways. So where am I gonna stay, huh?"
Ed blushed a bit, and smiled. "Normally workers are placed in living facilities with a partner. I didn't have one until now, and that means that you are now my working partner. Ein technically was my co-worker, but he is an animal so his housing is a bit different. He doesn't count as an active human body. You'll be staying with me from here on out."
Jet smiled a bit, and then laughed out loud. "Well it'll be just like old times then. Just sharin' a pad like back on Bebop, huh?" Shyly, Ed nodded and led Jet toward her quarters.
There ya Go everyone! How did you like the first chapter? Unlike some of my other fics this one is gonna be serious for the most part cause I wanna do it really well. Thusly there will not be nearly as many lemons as many of my other fics. Still it is Mature because there ARE going to be lemons eventually between the beauty that is Ed, and the rugged man that Jet is. When that happens trust me that it will be juicy, and wonderful. Next chapter is called "A Valentine For You"
Yours,
Tankou001