Dedicated to all the Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, Tenchi Muyo!, Outlaw Star, and Dr. Who fans out there. Reach for the stars.
Inuyasha belongs to Rumiko Takahashi.
4,554 words, originally posted 1-30-12. Edits posted 5-2-14.
Chapter One: Bad Day
"Moon maggots, star piss, and damn it all to the fifth ring," Kagome muttered moodily, giving the compact fission reactor one final smack with her wrench for good measure.
The reactor did not deign to respond.
"AARRGH! Damn you," she hissed at it, seething with displeasure. She glared at the thing before backing out of the tight cubby under her small ship's control panel, banging her head on the edge of the panel when she stood too quickly.
"Ow!" Kagome shrieked, eyes watering. She rubbed the fast-forming bump and narrowed her eyes at the controls. "Damn you, too!" she shrieked.
"Really, Higurashi," a voice drawled over her communicator, "language."
"Oh, shut it, Taisho. What the hell would you know about it?" she sneered, wishing he were actually there so she could level a glare at him, too. It would be nice to be able to take out her frustration on someone who could actually respond, for a change.
"Well, clearly more than you, if you can't even fix a simple fission reactor problem," he responded coolly.
"Wha- How did you know it was the fission reactor?" Kagome yelped, whipping to see if he'd somehow managed to sneak on board without her knowledge was just enjoying teasing a reaction out of her. It wouldn't be the first time.
"Elementary, my dear Watson," he quipped, and she could practically feel his smirk over the air waves.
"You know what, Taisho? Damn you, too," Kagome sniped. "And another thing! Why the hell didn't you tell me that the new pickup was a Denubian trader? I didn't come equipped to deal with that kind of threat! You know he probably has at least three backups and I didn't pack my sharpshooter," she whined.
"Relax, Higurashi. Keep the faith. I'm sure you're more than capable of taking down four pathetic back-alley traders."
"Yeah… if I had my sharpshooter."
"Get creative. I don't have time to tutor you on a takedown and teach you how to fix a simple compact fission reactor blowout," Taisho sighed. She could just imagine him running an irritated hand through his luxurious silver tresses, contemplating rolling his eyes and lamenting the fact that his trainee was a moron.
"Well, you know what?" Kagome seethed, "I don't have time to figure this crap out and talk to you at the same time. Later."
Kagome smashed her finger on the button to her communicator so hard that she jammed her nail, wringing another cry of pain from her lips. This was not her day. She knew Taisho wouldn't appreciate being hung up on, but he could take the piss out of her for it later. She had to fix the problem with her fission reactor before Menomaru gave her the slip.
After more than a week of tracking, she had narrowed his location to a well-known black market trading post on a small moon in the Gamma Quadrant. Unfortunately for her, this particular post was home to a variety of unsavory contacts, several of whom either she or Taisho had dealt with in the past. While she might not have Taisho's skill, she wasn't a complete nobody either, and her association with him had helped her start to make a name for herself. In terms of getting jobs, this was a good thing. In terms of making a lot of enemies in really unsavory places, this was a bad thing.
Furthermore, the outpost Menomaru was at really only harbored high-level traders. She had done some sneaky research through a friend at the Intergalactic Databank and discovered that Menomaru was a scumbag pirate from Denubia. They called themselves traders, but what it amounted to was that her capture, which was originally supposed to be an easy, no-nonsense job, was in reality a tough-as-nails bandit who would sell his own mother for the right price. If she had been debriefed with this knowledge, she would have known to pack an arsenal of weapons, including her trusty sharpshooter and any number of tricky disguises to track the bastard down. Denubians were known for being elusive, ruthless, and traveling in packs.
Kagome had instead prepared for a face-to-face confrontation with a coward that might have given her a small chase before giving in for minimal jail time. She had her standard-issue laser, her trusty .38, and two pairs of extra-strength handcuffs. She hadn't even packed her full bag of makeup so she could tart herself up and seduce the rat fink.
No, this was not turning out to be her day.
Even if she did manage to corner and capture him (and hope that he only had one backup or that she could kill the others, since two handcuffs and four skips did not add up), she didn't relish the thought of traveling by herself in a two-room cruiser with a pickup that probably routinely murdered and ate people like her for breakfast. And if she didn't hurry up and fix the damn fission reactor, none her ill-preparedness would matter anyway, since he would be gone before she even got down to the station.
Moon maggots, indeed.
"When I find that son of a bitch, I'm gonna kill 'im," Inuyasha threatened, pushing his way through the unyielding crowd on Saria, the moon that held the underground trade station in the Gamma Quadrant.
"Inuyasha, calm down," Miroku soothed. "We're not even sure that he's here. You could be getting all worked up for nothing." He rolled his eyes at Sango, running out of patience with their intrepid leader.
"Oh, he's here, all right. I can smell 'im," Inuyasha hissed, turning sharply at the next corner and confusing Miroku. The assassin stopped suddenly, causing his partner and teammate to crash into him.
"Hey!" Sango yelled, smacking Miroku on the back of the head. "Watch it!"
Miroku turned and placed both hands on her shoulders, a simpering look in his eye. "I'm sorry, my dear Sango. However can I make it up to you?" His words were at odds with his hand, which was wandering ever-closer to the beautiful mercenary's derrière.
"You can make it up to me by following our idiot captain before we get ourselves lost on this god-forsaken moon," Sango snapped. She reached behind her and grabbed the wrist that was inches from caressing her butt. "And if you touch my ass one more time, I'm taking this as a souvenir."
Miroku hastily removed his arm and held up his hands in a placating manner. "Sorry, sorry."
"Don't you sorry me. Get a move on, you imbecile." Sango spun Miroku around and jammed her gun into the small of his back, urging him forward.
"Ah, romance," Miroku crooned, starting forward at a pace that was much slower than Sango preferred. "Is that your gun, Sango, or are you just happy to see me?"
She rolled her eyes.
"You female space pirates really know how to woo a guy," Miroku complimented. Sango just jammed her gun harder into the small of his back.
"GO!"
"All right, all right," Miroku whined, speeding up to a jog. "No sense of humor. Yeesh."
Sesshoumaru Taisho stared, flabbergasted, at his communication device.
She had hung up on him! That little minx had hung up on him, and no one, no one, hung up on Sesshoumaru Taisho.
"You wanna play, little girl?" he muttered under his breath, moving quickly to his considerably larger ship's control panel and tapping in a series of coordinates with practiced fingers. He smirked as his ship sped forward and he heard his mechanic tumble and curse at the sudden change in velocity.
"We'll play."
Inuyasha stalked forward, his calf-length leather coat billowing behind him like a cloak and sending lesser beings ducking for cover at his obvious ire. There weren't many who didn't know who Inuyasha was, and even fewer who weren't afraid of the illustrious pirate. His name alone struck fear into the hearts of many, and it was just his luck that the bastard he was currently after wasn't one of them.
Inuyasha followed his keen nose to the source of his consternation, the dog ears on his head swiveling and cocking at the odd chatter and clink of glassware ringing through the streets. The Denubian Menomaru was unlikely to be slinging back a cold one and having a friendly afternoon chat with his contact, but you could never be too careful.
He caught another whiff of the trader's stink and took off at a sharp angle, knocking traders and shoppers out of the way in his haste, heedless of their shouted warnings and protests. He could sense Sango and Miroku were still a ways behind him, but he couldn't afford to wait for them to catch up and miss catching the slimy moth.
No one cheated Inuyasha out of a deal. Menomaru was about to learn that the hard way.
The demon trader's reputation preceded him, and he lived up to every slimy, slippery tale like the bug he was. But Inuyasha had needed the money to repair his ship, which seemed to be in a constant state of disarray. Shippo had warned him that if he let one more part deteriorate or failed to fix yet another glitch, they would be stuck on the next world they landed on for quite some time until Inuyasha managed to fix it. Rin had agreed that she was tired of working with parts that were so far past their prime, they would have been in the scrap heap's scrap heap.
Shippo's or Rin's complaints alone were bad enough, but together they were a force to be reckoned with, so Inuyasha had for once taken their words to heart and accepted a job that would more than pay out. They would have been able to replace all the broken parts on the Tetsusaiga with money to spare if Menomaru hadn't used them to steal his goods and then cheated them out of their pay.
Inuyasha's crew had delivered the cargo—an easy-to-transport canister of highly illegal and hard-to-find Shikon Jewel Shards, which increased the strength of whatever they were imbedded in by several times—to the designated off-planet space station and headed to Menomaru's moon to pick up the pay, only to discover that Menomaru had packed up and left with no signs of returning. Tetsusaiga's crew had high-tailed it back to the space station only to discover it blown to smithereens with no one in sight.
Furious that they had been played for fools, Inuyasha had spent several single-minded days tracking the Denubian, and now he was seconds from catching up to him taking their missing money out of his hide. Plus, he fully intended to reclaim the shards they had lost.
No one cheated Inuyasha out of a deal and lived to tell about it.
Kagome gave a shout of triumph as her compact fission reactor whirred to life, shooting off a few warning sparks before settling into a comfortable hum that sent her engine spinning back to life.
"Ha ha!" she shouted. "Take that, you little bastard!"
Kagome crawled out of her cubby hole, replaced the metal panel that covered her wires and parts, and sprinted over to the chair at her command center. Typing in the command and coordinates for landing on the moon sparkling in the distance, her small craft jetted toward the surface. Kagome didn't give herself a minute to rejoice before popping back out of the seat and fastening on her gun belt, making doubly sure her handcuffs were in place and her .38 was loaded.
She pocketed some extra bullets, not taking the time to properly insert them into her clip, slapped on some lip balm, and shrugged into her custom leather jacket with the fringe down the sleeves. Giving her hair one last fluff in the mirror in her small restroom, she hurried back to strap herself in for the landing.
Kagome's cruiser, a small, two-room space vessel named Tenseiga that was enough to carry her, the occasional cargo, and up to four passengers if they didn't mind sleeping on the floor, was her pride and joy. It may have been second-hand (from Taisho) and it may have been teeny, but it was hers. She kept it immaculate, replaced and fixed the parts herself, and knew her baby inside and out. Of course, now, she realized, she might need to brush up on her mechanical skills in addition to replacing her fission reactor.
The Tenseiga glided to a stop in the docking bay, cutting off a small cargo ship in the process. Kagome shut down her craft, heedless of the waving going on outside from the dock attendants, and scrambled out of her ship. She ignored the shouting from the dock master telling her she simply couldn't park there and sprinted toward the flashing sign that marked the entrance to the black market.
You'd think they'd be a little more reserved about conducting an illegal trade moon, but I suppose this is the Gamma Quadrant, Kagome thought ruefully, smirking despite herself.
She had managed to get ahold of the information that told her exactly where Menomaru was meeting to seal his trade deal, so she jogged to that section of the market, hoping beyond hope that she wasn't too late.
As she ran, checking signs and stalls as she went, she let her eye wander to the people who frequented the trade moon. The air was chill and dusty, so many of the traders and shoppers wore scarves and jackets that did the double duty of hiding their faces. Though most shoppers wore subdued browns, blacks, tans, and greens, Kagome occasionally spotted a vibrant flash of yellow, red, purple, or green. Some of those flashes, she realized, were loose strands of hair or facial markings peeping out of a collar or hood. Alien races and demons alike were a colorful lot, as evidenced by her boss and many of her skips.
Most stalls consisted of a table and a dark awning, with a lone trader sitting hooded or masked behind the counter. Oftentimes wares were not displayed openly, but whether from fear of thievery or arrest, she wasn't sure. The streets were packed, and even at her quick pace, she constantly had to slow to let someone aside or stop to avoid collision.
I hate being so small, Kagome lamented. People think they can walk all over you. If I were Taisho, these people would have parted like the damned Red Sea to let me through.
Huffing a sigh of annoyance at the unfairness of the universe in general, Kagome weaved around shoppers and traders, letting loose a small squeal of relief as she saw the sign for her designated stall.
Shoving people out of the way, she hurried toward the booth, but she was stopped by a ring of bystanders crowded around the entrance. She ducked and shoved her way through, eager to see what the fuss was about and hoping beyond hope that Menomaru was still on the moon. The sight that greeted her stopped her in her tracks.
Menomaru, for she was sure it was him as his face matched his file exactly, was being pinned and summarily choked by a burly looking demon in a long brown trench coat and about 30 guns strategically strapped to his person. The demon, dog from the looks of his ears, was loudly threatening the trader, shaking him every so often to punctuate his words. Menomaru kept trying to answer his attacker's questions, but every time he opened his mouth to speak, the demon shook him harder and clamped his hands more securely around Menomaru's throat. All this succeeded in was making Menomaru turn blue and the demon angrier.
Kagome moved forward to berate the demon for stealing her bounty and shoo him out of the way so she could handcuff the moth trader and escort him back to her cruiser. The good thing about this dog demon showing up was that he had already taken care of the Denubian's lackeys: two women in traditional Chinese dress who lay sprawled on the ground in an undignified heap. That was fine with Kagome; she wouldn't have gotten any pay for bringing them in, and they just would have taken up room on her ship and required a pair of handcuffs she didn't have.
It was then that the whole thing went to hell in a hand basket.
As Kagome moved forward, pushing the remainder of the crowd out of the way and unholstering her laser, two human mercenaries sprinted through the crowd, shoving people out of the way and even firing a warning shot. Kagome quickly readied her laser, prepared to take out the threat, if necessary. The humans rushed forward, flanking the demon and leveling their guns at Menomaru. The dog removed one of his hands from Menomaru's throat at a word from the male mercenary and reached to his hip for his gun. He expertly cocked the hammer with his thumb and held the pistol to Menomaru's head. Kagome's went wide and her heart began to pound when she heard him sneer, "Time's up, fucker."
They're gonna kill my quarry! she panicked.
Kagome pounced.
Inuyasha stalked into the stall where Menomaru was having a hushed conversation with his pathetic excuse of a bodyguard, uncaring of who saw him or witnessed the scene he was about to make.
Hell, let 'em watch, he thought. That'll teach anybody to fuck with me.
Inuyasha entered the booth, reveling in the look of shock on Ruri and Menomaru's faces.
"Peekaboo," Inuyasha leered, slapping Ruri down with a slash of his claws. Blood bloomed through her cheongsam and she stared in horror at her chest. With a cry of rage, Ruri's sister Hari launched herself through a back curtain, sword drawn and to all appearances intent on slashing Inuyasha to ribbons. He batted her aside, knocking her roughly into a table before she landed haphazardly on top of her sister. Inuyasha smirked when both didn't get up again.
Menomaru wasted no time scrabbling toward the entrance when he saw the quick work Inuyasha made of his cohorts, but Inuyasha's speed was no match for the moth. Inuyasha snagged Menomaru by the collar of his coat, slamming him into the stone wall ringing the stall before clamping both hands around the Denubian's neck. Menomaru's fingers clawed at Inuyasha's hands, but after three hard shakes from the dog, he fell silent, face chalk white with terror.
"Alright, now you listen up, you piece of shit maggot," Inuyasha growled, speaking lowly so the crowd that had gathered couldn't overhear. "I'm half inclined to shoot you where you stand for stiffing me my money, but I'm willing to go easy on you and just beat you 'til you cry if you hand over the shards and the money nice and easy."
Menomaru was beginning to turn blue, but he managed to curl his lip into a look of disdain and shake his head no, giving a feeble chuckle as he did so.
Inuyasha pulled him back by the neck and slammed him into the wall again, making the moth demon's head crack against the stone. Menomaru gave a low groan and a trickle of blood leaked out where his scalp hit the surface.
"Listen good, maggot breath, 'cause I'm only saying this once," Inuyasha snarled, suddenly out of patience and in no mood to play. "Either you tell me what happened to those shards and you give me my money, or I'm taking you back to my ship, cutting off your wings, shooting you in the stomach, and sending you out the cargo hatch in the middle of deep space, do you understand?"
Menomaru's eyes widened at the threat and he swallowed with difficulty. Inuyasha gave him another hard shake and kicked him in the shin. The Denubian groaned.
"I said, do you understand?" Inuyasha growled menacingly.
Menomaru frantically nodded his head yes, opening his mouth to respond, but unable to get any sound out.
Inuyasha let out another low growl, but he loosened his hands a fraction of an inch. "Good. Now talk."
"I- I don't—" Menomaru gasped, unable to get anything else out.
"Speak up," Inuyasha snapped, shaking Menomaru again for good measure.
Menomaru swallowed and tried again. "I don't know where the shards are," he managed.
"What?" Inuyasha hissed, eyes narrowing dangerously.
"The client… Naraku… he knew we had you drop them at the space station. He got them even before we did. I- I was never paid either."
"You're telling me," Inuyasha began, voice low and threatening, "that this Naraku fucker stiffed you just like you did us and now he has my money and my shards?"
Menomaru nodded frantically, Adam's apple bobbing with the effort.
"Don't matter," Inuyasha commented dismissively. "You still owe me my cash. Where is it, old man?"
"D-don't have it—"
He cut off at Inuyasha's rough shake and another kick. "Try again."
"I-I- I'm not lying," he managed. "Bad investments… all gone… the Shikon was s'posed to get me back on my feet."
"Yeah, after you conveniently kept all the profit to yourself," Inuyasha muttered. He vaguely noticed that Miroku and Sango had caught up to him and were flanking his back, prepared to fend off his bodyguards should they wake or any crowd member who decided to play hero. "Fine. Maybe I'll let you live if you tell me where this Naraku idiot is."
"I-I-I don't—"
"You have ten seconds, Menomaru," Inuyasha warned, handing reaching for his belt.
"No, really, Inuyasha, p-please, I—"
"Five seconds." Inuyasha leveled his gun and cocked the hammer, making Menomaru wince.
"But I—"
"Three." He held the gun to his head.
"No, no, you stupid dog, I really don't, I swear—"
"Time's up, fucker."
Before Inuyasha could give Menomaru one final good-bye sneer and pull the trigger, he heard someone shout in the background and he was yanked back, a weight on his shoulder. The person pulled up on his arm and the gun misfired, shooting a whole in the canopy above Menomaru's booth and shocking Inuyasha so much that he let go of Menomaru's neck.
The moth demon crumpled to the ground, but he was up again before Sango and Miroku could even react, shoving his way through the thick crowd and quickly disappearing from sight. Inuyasha saw Miroku and Sango take off after their prey, so Inuyasha rounded on the woman still clinging to his back.
"What the fuck?!" he shouted, reaching fruitlessly behind him and attempting to pull her off. She was stuck on like a leech.
"That's my bounty, you asshole, and you almost killed him. I will not let you kill the only source of income I've had in weeks."
Inuyasha, who finally succeeded in pulling her off him, dragged her to his front and fisted his hands into the collar of her shirt. Surprisingly, she was just a little slip of a thing, barely five feet tall and cute as a button. She had wavy black hair that fell to her butt, a deliciously curvy figure, big gray almond eyes, and pouty pink lips that would send any red-blooded male into a lust-filled fantasy. In short, she was a wet dream.
"Wh-what the hell?" Inuyasha yelped cleverly, suddenly at a loss for words.
"I'm an intergalactic bounty hunter, and that was my target. I've been following that slimy son of a bitch for a week and a half and then you had to pop your stupid ass in at the last minute and ruin all my hard work, damn you!"
Clearly, her mouth did not match the rest of her in terms of allure.
Inuyasha shook his head and set her down, suddenly unwilling to lay down the law with a woman a fraction of his size.
"Look, lady. I don't know nothin' about no bounty. But that fucker cheated me out of a payment, and now neither of us got 'im. Besides, don't you bounty hunters have some saying, dead or alive or some shit?"
Kagome grimaced. "Uh, that does not apply to everyone. It does not apply to him. Would you have gotten money if you popped him?"
Inuyasha scratched the back of his neck and wrinkled his nose. "No, but I sure as hell would have felt better about this."
Kagome's eyes widened as she had a sudden thought. "Wait a minute, you said he stiffed you money?"
"Yeah, so, what of it?" Inuyasha scowled down at her.
"That means you're a space pirate."
Inuyasha cocked an arrogant eyebrow. "And?"
Kagome whipped out a pair of her extra strength handcuffs, clipped one expertly to her wrist, and had the other one clapped to Inuyasha before he could so much as say "boo."
"You're under arrest," she explained smugly, smirking.
"Wha?" Inuyasha blanched, looking confusedly between the girl and the cuffs. "What the hell, lady?"
"You're a space pirate. As such, under intergalactic law, you're in violation of code 237, which means I have the right to take you in. I might not get much for you, but it's better than nothing."
Inuyasha's eyes widened and he shook his head in disbelief. "This is ridiculous. You can't just go around arresting whoever the hell you damn well please."
"On the contrary," Kagome replied coolly, "I believe I just did."
Inuyasha's eyes narrowed. "You take these off me, right now, or I will make you take them off."
Kagome laughed, waving her uncuffed hand unconcernedly. "Oh, please. What are you going to—"
She was cut off with a low growl from Inuyasha. He glared at her before backing her against the wall and holding her against it with his body weight. She struggled, but her diminutive size was no match for his bulk. She noted absently that he smelled rather nice and felt good pressed up against her, but all such thoughts flew out the window when she heard the cock of his gun.
"Un. Cuff. Me. Now," he snarled. Kagome began to panic.
"I-I can't," she wailed.
Inuyasha sighed loudly. He was getting tired real quick of people telling him they couldn't follow simple instructions.
"And why not, Galaxy Princess?"
In spite of herself and her situation, Kagome wrinkled her nose at his nickname. "Because," she whined, "the keys are back at my cruiser."
Inuyasha heaved a long-suffering sigh and moved away from the wall, herding Kagome toward the crowd with his gun. She stiffened at the feel of the hard steel at her back.
He leaned down close and breathed in her ear, "This is how it's gonna be, Princess. You're gonna take me to your ship, you're gonna uncuff me, and you're gonna let me leave. And if you don't, I absolutely will not hesitate to shoot your pretty little head right off your shoulders and saw the rest of you off with this blasted piece of metal when I get back to my ship, got it?"
Kagome nodded, swallowing thickly. "Loud and clear."
"Good," Inuyasha muttered, his warm breath making shivers run down her spine. "Get moving."
Kagome trudged forward to the space dock, trying to ignore the feel of the gun at her back and the handsome man behind it.
Nope, this was definitely not her day.
*Menomaru is an anime-only character from the first Inuyasha movie, Affections Touching Across Time. He is a moth demon and the main enemy of the movie; his team are the two women we see in Chinese dress, Ruri and Hari.
