The Strangers

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By Fira

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321 Lets Jam!

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To Eli for getting me into Cowboy Bebop, and for being my best friend, and to Nakiko for being my best friend in the roleplay I do. You're both always there for me.

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The Facts- Mission Briefing

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The air was ironically silent on October 1st, as the fabric of time-space opened at about 50 degrees North longitude and 25 degrees East latitude, somewhere south of the island of Balamb, and deposited a large spaceship with the feel of an aircraft carrier and a much smaller, solo air/water craft in the water. The crafts floated to 55 degrees North and 33 degrees East before they were noticed by a small group of S-Boarders off of Balamb's main beach who called in the foreign spaceships. The S-Boarders were high enough not to inform Balamb's main government system, but one of them remembered a guy he knew in SeeD and called the SeeD forces. Squall, understandably, had little patience with the drugged out surfers, and promptly relayed the communication channel to Zell, whose techie side kicked in and organized a plan.

1. Infiltrate ships on smaller ships (they had a name... we took em to Dollet... I'll ask Quisty later)

2. Search for survivors or at least living/dead beings

3. Take survivors or at least living/dead beings back to Balamb in the smaller ships

4. (if applicable) Set up a medical team to heal the beings found

5. Search ships for clues as to where they are from, etc.

6. After everything has been thoroughly searched, use the Ragnarok to take the ships to the D-District Prison area in what used to be Galbadia

7. (if applicable) Repair ships

Zell's plan was put into action pretty quickly, if two days could be called quickly. Zell led a team of five trainee-SeeDs and two other higher ranking SeeDs, namely Irvine Kinneas and Quistis Trepe. Irvine took two of the SeeD candidates to investigate the smaller ship on its own, and Quistis and Zell took the remaining three to tackle the larger one.

The larger ship (Apparently named the Bebop):

5 living beings:

1 man in his late 40's found in a much smaller craft labelled the Hammerhead inside the Bebop (description: clearly part mechanical, balding, heavily muscular)

1 man in his late 20's found in critical medical condition with a should- have-been fatal sword wound to the chest, also in a much smaller craft, labelled the Swordfish II (description: quite tall and lean, with poofy green-black hair)

1 woman in her late 20's and very little clothing, also found in a much smaller craft, labelled the Redtail (description: well-proportioned for a woman her size and age, with dark hair)

1 girl in her early teens (description: small and thin with fluffy orange hair, similar in appearance to any boy of the same age), found in the main cabin with

1 welsh corgi dog (description: small and brown)

15 living non-beings:

3 varieties of regular flowers

3 colors of pepper plants

2 colors of tomato plants

7 plants that were unidentifiable even to botany specialist Aeris (A SeeD Candidate)

Various non living, non beings, such as cooking supplies, house sorts of things, toiletries, and a small amateur yaoi hentai stash, possibly drawn by one of the ship's inhabitants featuring a silver-haired man and the young man found in the ship

The smaller ship (Labelled VSP, unamed):

1 living being:

1 man in his late 20's found in critical medical condition with gunshot wounds that should have been fatal (description: silver hair, tall and thin, almost sickly)

No other objects, clearly not a living quarter, except for a small small amateur yaoi hentai stash similar to the one found in the main ship featuring the dark haired man the young man found in the solo ship and the ship's inhabitant

All of the humans and the dog were in some state of comatose or unconsciousness as they were loaded onto smaller ships and taken to Balamb Garden for medical care, and arrived on October 5th. The medical team was headed by Selphie Tilmit, and included instructor Seifer Almasy and sorceress Rinoa Heartilly. SeeDs Irvine Kineas and Quistis Trepe spent much time in the infirmary, doing very little except to get in the way. Irvine spent his time staring at the well-endowed older female hooked up to IVs and wires and all kinds of things, and Quistis stared at our Sorceress on the med squad.

Some notable status changes occured on the 9th. The wounded young men showed signs identical to those of the others in the group,instead of critical condition status, and their wounds healed, leaving only scars. Also, data from the ship found several guns, one of which had fingerprints belonging to the dark-haired man with sword wounds, and a sword on the smaller ship that carried fingerprints belonging to the silver-haired man, and blood of the dark-haired man. They were moved to beds as far away as they could be in the infirmary, despite the arguments from Irvine that they were clearly into each other, from the 'drawings' found.

The first thing to awake was the dog, which occured on October 15th, who could tell Garden very, very little about where these people came from. The dog, who was quickly named Nie by some junior students (for no apparent reason), did littlebesides pace between the young girl and the green-haired man.

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The Nurse's Views- Third Person Narrative

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Selphie snapped to awareness as she heard the beep that meant that the status of one of the 'strangers' (as they were referred to) had changed. She managed to locate which status had changed quickly enough to witness the awakening of the orange-haired girl, whose eyes fluttered open.

"Where is Edward?" said the girl, putting different emphasis on the words. She was not asking where a person named Edward

was, she seemed to be asking where SHE was.

"Where did Bebop go?" said the girl, possibly wondering where the ship she had been on went.

"Who are you?" said the girl, finally noticing Selphie.

"Um... hi. My name is Selphie Tilmit. You're in the infirmary of Balamb Garden, but I'm not too sure that helps any." Selphie tried, thinking that no one had ever had to do anything like this before, so she had to make it up.

"Edward is Edward Wong Hau Pepilu Tivruky the 4th and is glad to meet you, but Edward doesn't like being hooked up to machines..." Ed said, as she tried to wrestle herself out of the life support systems.

Selphie flickered between excitement and just plain being weirded out as she unhooked the girl from the life-support systems. She wondered what to do next, probably the girl would want a shower or something, and her clothes back because nobody likes hospital gowns. Edward sat on the edge of the hospital bed, dangling her feet off the edge, looking around. Then, all of a sudden, she noticed everyone else that she'd been found with.

"Edward not here alone!" Said Ed, as she scooped the dog Nie into her arms.

"Oh yeah... would you mind telling us what everyone is called?" Selphie got a clipboard as she asked, glad to have a better name than John Doe for everyone. She wrote the date, October 19th.

"Well, the big man is Farmer. Poofy-hair is Smoker. Faye-Faye is the girl... but Ed doesn't know who the other guy is. Ed saw him when she was looking at pictures Smoker keeps hidden, though. Ed thinks he might be called Viscious, it was on the pictures, and because Smoker said that name... while fighting a personal ship. Ed can't remember anything past that." Ed frowned, then seemed to remember something.

"Oh yeah, and this is Ein." Ed held up the dog, formerly Nie. Selphie paused her writing down the names at the strangeness of the whole Ein/Nie thing, then shrugged. Weird things happen.

Selphie led Ed down the hall to the dorms, advising her to take a shower, telling her that she'd wait and then give her a tour. The girl came from a place that at least understood showers, so how different could it be? She didn't have long to ponder it, however, because the orange-haired girl came skipping out of the showers, still wet, but wearing the clothes that she'd been found in: black shorts, a white shirt, and a pair of goggles around her neck, clearly for some unknown purpose.

"So, you want to take a look around?"

"Yeah!"

Selphie spent the next hour or so showing the enthusiastic girl around Balamb Garden. Edward had been particularly excited about the classroom and it's many computers. Ed had explained about her computer and her hacking goggles, and former reputation as a genius hacker, and Selphie began to wonder if it was such a good idea that the girl knew about the computer terminals here. It seemed that Ed could be flying Garden from a study panel if she wanted to. Somehow, Selphie was almost proud of the little girl.

Then, they went to the cafeteria for lunch. Ed's eyes went huge at seeing all of the people that were in the cafeteria, and their eyes went huge seeing her. Selphie took Ed to the back of the room to find an empty table, and took Ed's order for lunch. By the time she got back, Ed was surrounded by a cloud of curious people and their chatter.

"... name again, kid?" A familliar voice leered.

"Edward is Edward Wong Hau Pepilu Tivrusky the 4th." Ed persisted.

"Listen to her, she must be from a universe of retards!" Another voice shouted.

"If you don't mind, I can speak as well as any of you," Ed stated, calm and level, causing a dead silence to drop around the group of people. "I just happen to like referring to myself in third person, thanks very much."

Selphie almost dropped the tray she was carrying. This girl she'd just met had gone from being a hyperactive five-year old to as mature as anyone in about 2 seconds.

"I like this kid..." A voice that everyone couldn't help recognizing came into the picture.

"Seifer, aren't you on shift to be in the infirmary now?" Selphie couldn't help being just a little pissed. The group started to disperse now that the fun was over.

"Oh, Rinoa and Quis took my shift for a few minutes, I wanted to come and meet, Edward, is it?" Seifer shrugged, his uniform clinking. Everyone thought it was a joke when Seifer first wore his uniform during the day, but he'd worn it every day since.

"Yeah. Oh yeah, Ed, this is Seifer Almasy. He's been on the infirmary team, looking over all of you guys." Selphie said as she slid the tray onto the table.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Almasy." Ed extended her hand, and Seifer shook it.

"Please, I'm Seifer to my students. Hey Selph, do you think she'd be a good SeeD candidate?"

"I don't know, people said I'd be a terrible one and here I am, so I doubt it matters. Ed, you've seen enough of Balamb Garden, what do you think about becoming a SeeD someday?"

"Um... could I get back to you in a few days about that?" Ed laughed, blushing a little. She seemed like a normal teenager now. Selphie guessed that she didn't want anyone else making fun of her.

They continued the conversation, going on about how Ed's hacking skills might benefit SeeD in the future, with espionage becoming more and more a service of SeeD. They talked until Seifer was replaced by Rinoa, whose shift was over. Selphie looked at the clock. Damn, it had gotten late. It was already 6. They'd have to start thinking about where Ed was going to sleep.

Selphie couldn't think of a place. She didn't know if any dorms were empty of storage space. But she had a spare bed in her room. Edward could sleep there. It didn't take long to get her settled in the room, and Selphie's last thoughts before she fell asleep was how much she liked this girl.

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The End- For Today -See You Space Cowboy!-

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If you can't tell, this is a FF8 Cowboy Bebop crossover. If you don't recognize a character, chances are that he/she's from Cowboy Bebop. I don't own anything.