Chapter 1
Time Warp Rock
We were all in the docking bay, standing in front of Bebop's boarding hatch. I had already downloaded all the information about this alternate universe into the ships memory. I was scanning Bebop crew readouts. The report was limited, but existent. Besides, I already knew them. The docked ship yielded up its cargo of Faye Valentine, a bounty huntress, and her partner Jet Black. They looked distraught when we opened the hatch.
"Spike…" Faye managed to say. Jet was able to explain himself, limping around in a worried circle, on leg in a bandage.
"We aren't the whole crew. There is also Spike… or was. He went off on a vengeful rage an hour ago. We finally got the ship working, but the damage done to it in a fight earlier today was more than we expected. Faye's Redtail was hit so badly I couldn't repair it in time."
"Vengeful rage, eh? James, that remind you of anyone, say, a Ranger, blonde hair, has a Lugia? That ring any bells." Kira giggled at her own little joke.
"I know about Spike," I told Jet.
"Huh?"
"Never mind. I know, that's what's important. We're going to need an emergency transfusion of blood, and some bandages."
"For what?" Erika asked.
"To rescue Mr. Spiegel. What else." I holstered an extra pistol.
We put the cruiser in orbit, ignoring yelled contact from the surface control. While we set the ships systems on ways to repair the Bebop and the Redtail I took Kira to the main docking bay. In it were housed, as the ship tech readouts said, two full squadrons of fighters, several small shuttles, and 12 gunboats. Kira and I grabbed a shuttle. Attempting to pilot it was an interesting experience. Kira's eyes widened as we spiraled towards Mars.
There was giant hole in the building's roof. What had once been a red dragon insignia was a giant gaping hole. Beneath it I could see a throne, a platform and a large unnecessary amount of stairs, leading down to another floor, and from there a hallway stretched. There were a myriad of armed men gathered at the bottom of the stairs. On the stairs was one body. Spike, I assumed. Another body, Vicious, was lying next to the throne. We brought the shuttle to a landing, next to the hole. I wondered if it would break the already stressed ceiling. Kira and I disembarked, lowering ourselves psychically to Spike's side. The men with guns aimed at us. Big mistake. Kira fried the weaponry. I picked up the bloodied Spike psychically, levitating him, blood dripping from his coat. He was slashed quite badly. Vicious had done some damage. While I pondered I was struck from behind. One of the Red Dragon Agents had attacked. I turned my attention to him, causing Spike to drop, only to be caught by Kira a second before he hit the ground. The Mafia man was quite good. He seemed to be a higher-level belt in a martial art I hadn't encountered. I caught a kick in the stomach and fell back. I dropped into fighting stance, pulling a complicated and excessive distraction technique wherein I waved my hands around and said, and I quote, "waaaaaaaaaahh!" I proceeded to pull out my pistol and shoot the bastard. I had no time for a fight. Kira and I hovered up to the deck of the shuttle, Spike hovering alongside. I fired off a couple warning shots, letting them know we could still hurt them.
We got Spike to the ship without a hitch. It took twenty minutes to find the sick bay, where the lights were off. There was a button on the counter. It said 'on.' I pressed it, nothing happened. I pressed it again, nothing happened. As they say, "lather, rinse and repeat." I did that, without the lather and rinse parts. It didn't work. Kira and I frantically searched. Kevin poked his head into the room. Spike groaned.
"Hey guys," Kevin said, "what's wrong?"
"Can't turn on the power," I said, frantically. Kevin walked over to the 'on' button. He pressed it.
"Kevin, we already tried it, it doesn't," the power flickered on, "…work."
"Baka, both of you, it's right here." He laughed, and tended to Spike. Kira and I left, slightly embarrassed.
Erika had been cooking some actual edible food. I had already had a run in with the dining hall computer, which gave me a substance clearly made entirely of shoes. It was good shoe, though. Erika's cooking wasn't half bad, seeing as she was trained in most arts, culinary included. She was setting the small table in my room when I got back.
"You did all this for me?"
"Yeah, you looked like you could use a boost. You've had a tough week."
"Mmhmm."
"James, you need a break. Look at you, you're bruised. What did they hit you with?"
"Hands. Take your mothering somewhere else. I don't need it. Please." I felt my eyes cloud with tears. Mothering… What of my parents? Goddish knows. They were the very people I was currently endeavoring to stop and destroy at this moment. Those who had spawned me, and my kin Darien. I was evil in essence. Could I deny it, now that I knew?
"Yes." I said it out loud, not meaning too.
"Yes what?"
"Yes, I'll make it." I started to cry. I wasn't supposed to cry, big bad pokemon ranger. Stolid, emotionless, unmoving. We were the best and the brightest. But, I guess everybody needs a good cry now and then.
"James, why are you crying." Erika looked concerned. I just stared down. She enfolded me in her arms.
"James, please don't cry, please."
"G-g-gomen." I managed to say.
"Don't apologize, James." It must have been twenty minutes before my eyes dried and I was able to eat. By then the food was cold. I warmed it slightly,
manipulating temperature with my mind. Erika and I ate in silence. She spoke so openly with her eyes. I could also read her mind, but that's beside the point. She smiled.
"Feeling better, Kojiro?"
"I'm fine. I think…"
"Do you want to talk?"
"Not really."
"Okay." We resumed eating in silence. Erika's hand moved forwards, chopsticks snatching another piece of sushi. She brought her hand back to her side, and in doing this, knocked her chopstick rest off the table. I leaned forward to grab it for her, psychic powers forsaken for formality. She also reached. We came face to face. I wanted to pull away, but couldn't, or wouldn't. She smiled nervously. I did the same. This was feeling slightly cliché. It felt awkward being this close to anyone with the way things had gone. It was insanely quiet. I could feel her kimono pressed against my chest, moving with every breath she took. I stared into her eyes. There was air of romance to the situation. She was beautiful, I realized. It was the first time I'd thought anything like that since Sabrina's death less than a month earlier. I felt terrible inside, torn between Erika and Sabrina's memory. For some reason I couldn't decide between the two. Last night it would have been different. Now I felt a strong pull to the girl pressed against me. What was happening? I thought back through my life. I was an outcast. Raised by the kazams. I fell in love with Sabrina, living by the laws of the psychics, my people. Now I was 17, nowhere near a virgin. I hadn't had a childhood. I had lived my entire life grown up. It all struck me. I had dragged Sabrina into this all. Sabrina was dead now. My fault, my own brother her murderer. Now Erika was here. She had been an escape a few years ago. Erika… I didn't want her to have Sabrina's fate. I was teetering on the edge of a precipice. Back to the land lay my past, Sabrina. Ahead, the unknown, Erika, waiting. If I waited I could fall either way. I stared into Erika's eyes, and threw myself into the abyss.
She had been debating similar issues, it seemed, seeing as she was centimeters away from a very depressed Ranger. She'd made up her mind too. We kissed. Her hands came up from where they had been supporting her on the floor. She kissed me again. We were lying on the thin, uncomfortable carpeting of the bedroom. I pulled back.
"Door, lock." The command operation system clicked the door shut, and a second click affirmed the lock. I leaned back to Erika, and let her put her arms around me. The band of warmth was comforting.
"Erika, this feels so wrong, yet…"
"So right," she finished my statement. We kissed again. I held her. I levitated us to the bed, formality forgotten. What were we doing? I loosened her kimono's obi, and it fell to the bed below us. I lowered us slowly down.
"James, do you want to do this?"
"I don't know." I kissed her again.
"It feels wrong."
"Then let's not do it…"
"No, we shouldn't stop. We can't…" She loosened the ties on the front of my shirt. It was modeled after a kung fu shirt. It was easy to move in, and my favorite color. Black.
"James. We shouldn't do this." She wiggled her left arm out of the kimono, and pulled me closer.
"I know, dear, I know." I held her. My hand, busy with the right half of her kimono, stopped. If we didn't do this, it would be all right.
"Don't stop. Please, don't stop."
"Erika, we shouldn't."
"We should, and we will, c'mon."
"Okay. But…. Okay." She was right. I couldn't live with my pain.
"Kiss me, Kojiro." I kissed her again. She pulled as close to me as she could. I could smell a sweet perfume on her kimono. She breathed in deeply, eyes closed. She looked so peaceful. She pushed back and pulled my shirt off.
"Erika, I'm still not too sure about this…"
"Neither am I…" She hesitated.
"Don't stop. We can't, not now."
"You're right." The kimono came off, and I could feel her silk under kimono against my chest. She pulled the black jeans halfway down my legs, and I kicked them off.
"Why are we doing this? My wife is dead just ten days ago, and I'm lying here half-naked with you," She looked insulted, "I'm sorry. Nothing against you, really. It's just that I'm lying half-naked with anyone right now scares me." She relaxed. I ran my hand up and pulled the under kimono off her. I could feel her soft skin against mine. She kissed my cheek.
"We're doing this because it happened. I don't know why that is. It's all so confusing. Normally I'd feel wrong about this…"
"It's alright, love," I reassured her. I felt bizarre.
"James, is it… make love to me."
"Erika… I don't know… What if… Sure."
GRAFTON VALERIE'S SHIP
Grafton Valerie stared out into the starfield. Phobos's surface stretched out beneath his command cruiser, the Fear. Its sister ship, Terror, hung in space beside it. Grafton was old, a wizened man of seventy-two, not in any shape for bounty hunting. He didn't need shape. He had resources. Two hundred loyal followers, armed, dangerous, and totally subservient.
"Spiegel will pay for his transgressions," Grafton had almost caught the fucker now.
"Yes, sir," Rekishin, his second in command, replied. Spiegel had beaten him to too many bounties. Now he would pay. And Grafton would get the ship, Bebop. With some repair it would be in full working order. And he would get the most priceless cargo, the dog. An illegal Data-Dog. He could soon unlock its mysteries.
"Sir, we've picked up a ship matching the specifications of the Bebop!" A scanner officer yelled.
"Good, trace it. We'll have them soon enough."
"Yes, sir." Grafton smiled, the wrinkles of his face grotesquely distorting it into an evil grimace. He laughed.
ED AND EIN
Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV was plugged into a computer. Naturally. Ed's father was gone, tracing asteroids for his mapping. Ed was hacking. She had found a video feed off the face of Phobos. It showed two giant starships. They were transmitting. She logged into their comm-systems.
"Sir, we've picked up a ship matching the specifications of the Bebop!" one man's voice.
"Good, trace it. We'll have them soon enough." Another man, older.
"Bebop! Ed remembers Bebop!"
"We'll destroy them this time." The old man again.
"Bebop! Lunkhead and Faye-Faye are in trouble! We've gotta help 'em Ein!"
"Arf!" Ein agreed. They stole out of the housing unit, running to the launch pad. There was a single ship lying on the pad. Ed climbed into it, snapping the cockpit shut, Ein barely clamoring in. Ed pulled the seatbelt into its buckle. She plugged herself into the computer, and relayed a message to her father. 'Be back soon! Helping Spike person! - Ed J.' Then she took off, the ship reeling like a drunkard with its twelve-year-old pilot.
"Whoohoo Ein, we're going on an adventure!"
"Arf!" Ein was cowering beneath the seat.
KUNATZU CRUISER
Erika collapsed into my arms. I held her to me.
"Hold me, Kojiro."
"I am."
"I know, keep doing it. It feels comforting." She looked into my eyes, and I kissed her.
"Erika… Are you sure we should have done that?"
"I don't know, and I don't think I'll ever know. It happened, we're alive. We should live with it. And we might as well have enjoyed it." She ran her hand through my hair. We kissed again.
"Warning! Warning! Warning!" Klaxons blared.
"Our vessel is under attack," the computer said coldly. The ship shook. Erika gasped.
"James, this is bad." She rolled off to the side. I jumped, throwing on my clothes. Erika stumbled out of the room behind me, tying the obi on her kimono. The ship shook again. We were thrown to the floor. Mewtwo popped out of its pokeball.
"James, get up, we need to get to the bridge," Mewtwo knew more about what was happening than I did. We stumbled onto the bridge ten minutes later. Erika jumped to the piloting chair. Kira was on the main defensive weaponry, the vicious grin on her face growing with every one of the enemy fighters that fell. Our shields were getting pounded by the two cruisers in the background.
"Open communications Erika!"
"Hai!"
"This is Kojiro Kai Li. You have no business attacking my ship. Stand down or we will fire upon your cruisers."
"Iye. Kojiro, hand Spiegel over, or it is you who shall be destroyed."
"I know no one by that name."
"Of course not. Hand him over if you wish to live. That is all." He cut the transmission.
"Erika, open fire. Kira, concentrate all fire on the smaller ships, well handle the cruisers."
"I'm one step ahead of you, Mr. Smart Ass."
"Yeah, well keep doing it!" We shook with another volley of fire.
"Structural integrity on the Fear and Terror?"
"Terror's shields are breaking down. Fear is holding, 89% shields."
"How are our shields?"
"We are nearing 98% with this battery. We should, at this rate, last another twelve and a half hours. Fear will last, hold on, checking, another 10 hours. Terror, another 25 minutes.
"Keep firing. I'll go see what we can do for the turbolaser batteries. C'mon, Kevin, we're gonna find the controls."
"They aren't on the bridge?" He asked.
"No, I checked. The computer says it's activated from the second battery command post. We need to find it. If we do, it's possible that we can punch through the shields of the Fear."
"Okay, let's go!" Kevin was already out the door. I followed. The halls were dark, power automatically being reverted to the shields. The directional signs were glowingly brightly in the still darkness, their panels set to brighten in these conditions.
"The shields can't take this, you know. We don't have twelve hours. We have about twelve minutes."
"Huh?" I questioned Kevin's reasoning.
"The equations I get from the computer say we have another twelve minutes. Erika's program multiplied our time by 60, due to a glitch in the system, which may be intentionally put there to get us killed, thanks to Darien. Besides, he drained the shield power."
"Makes sense."
"I'll work out the bugs when we get out of here."
"Yeah, if we get out…"
"Yeah…" We ran down the hallway. The turbolaser battery command was down the halway a few hundred yards, according to the signs. I checked the time. We had nearly 8 minutes left. The cold metal of the floor thudded under my feet. We were closing in now, just fifty yards and six and a half minutes left. We go to the controls. I pressed the big red fire button, while Kevin aligned the sights.
"Please enter access code!" The computer said. We had five minutes left.
"Access code! No! Goddish damn it!"
"Please enter access code!" It said again. Kevin poured over the computers next to the controls. We had about four minutes left. I made guesses. We had three, two point five, two, and finally one minute left. Kevin was scanning frantically.
"What going on down there?" Erika's voice came over the comm.
"Not now Erika…" I said distractedly. We had thirty seconds left.
"James, here it is!"
"Enter it quickly!" Kevin clicked in the password, takai neko (expensive cat).
"Access Granted!" The computer said coldly. I realigned the Fear in the sights. I fired, three seconds left on the clock. Their missiles flew at us, and were vaporized in the turbolaser. The laser lanced the Fear, crippling, yet not destroying, it. Terror's shields had collapsed. We opened communications.
"Valerie, we can destroy you in one shot. Surrender."
"Never… I will never… You've won this time, but I'll be back." The Fear limped off, Terror close behind. Erika readied for another shot from the turbolaser.
"Hold. They can't do jack shit to us right now. We're going to find a way to get out of this dimension."
"Where to?" Asked Jet.
"Anywhere but here."
"And what is so wrong with our universe?" Faye asked, almost serious.
"Nothing, except that it isn't ours."
"James, there's a ship on the scanner. It's opening communications. Should we accept?"
"Go ahead, put them on forward view." I was confronted with the image of a very tired looking Ed, and a bedraggled Ein.
"Hello."
"Hello. Please identify yourself."
"Ed is Ed," she said, and then spied Jet, "Hey, Jet person. Let us on board, mmkay? Ed needs food!"
"Arf!"
"It's safe to let them on, Kojiro, we know them."
"I know."
"Huh?"
"Never mind, I'll explain later."
"Okay, I guess…"
"Edward is a hacker. She is from Earth, as far as I know, her father tracks meteors and maps them. She must have left him there for a good reason, seeing as she just found him. We need to find out what is so important," I told my crew. Jet looked at me strangely. He probably didn't know how I knew what I knew.
"Ed's hungry!" Ed tumbled out of the cockpit, followed by a dizzy Ein. Edward spied Jet and ran up to him.
"Jet! Edward came to warn Spike about Cowboy Valeries."
"We've already met him."
"And you're alright. Goody! Where's Spike?"
"He's been hurt, Ed."
"Hurt?" The ship shook with missile blows. Big missiles.
"No time to explain now, we gotta go, we gotta get out of here." I ran back to the bridge. Erika stood.
"James, there's a fleet of cruisers coming out of orbit on the planet. We're screwed!"
"Oh, shit!" I yelled, "Erika, find the activation for the dimensional warp! We need to leave this little party!" Erika searched the computer database. The Big Red Button located in the central control panel under the locked security panel operated the dimensional warp.
"It's locked!"
"I'll open it, don't worry." I started towards it, and was pitched off my feet by a missile blast. I tumbled to the control panel and managed to smash my head into it. I stood. I felt blood run over my face, and somehow fought the dizziness and stood, shakily. I ran my hand to the security lock. The key was still in it. I turned it, and the panel popped up and slid into the consoles. I punched the button. Nothing happened.
"We're so fucked." We weren't going anywhere. Then I was thrown to the floor by a huge blast of energy that hit the ship. The view screens showed the ship being enveloped by blue energy. We were thrown into a swirl of starlines. A timer, counting down from thirteen hours and twenty-six minutes came up.
"Thriteen hours, twenty-six minutes to destination." The computer spoke. I fell to the floor. I could taste blood."
"We're going to go get a bandage on that," Erika said, hauling me to the infirmary.
"Here." Kevin slapped a bandage on my head. Whatever he had sprayed on it stung like hell.
"Ahh, geez!"
"Oh, c'mon, it doesn't hurt that much." I saw Spike, lying prone on the medical bed. He was bandaged. He seemed to be all right. He was sleeping, probably under heavy anesthetic. I got up, just a bit dizzy, and left. I had to take a shower and get this blood off my clothes.
Chapter 1.5
"Why did we do that?" Erika asked, and then rolled over to look at me.
"What, have sex?"
"Yeah, I mean, why does anyone?"
"I dunno. Perhaps it's to alleviate stress."
"Explain."
"Well, what is the opposite of stress, bad feelings?"
"Pleasure, I guess."
"Yeah, people get pleasure a lot of ways. Adults listen to music, meditate, some buy things, and even others play sports, or eat. Children play, they cry. Babies too. We're teenagers. Our bodies are hormone bombs. We're stuck on a ship in a closed community with other teenagers. We have sex. It works, doesn't it?"
"Mmhmm."
"Well, see? It's that simple. Besides, it's not like this was the first time between us."
"Yeah, you're right. One thing, though. If it's so great and everything, why aren't we just having sex with everyone?"
"I don't know. Perhaps there is some attraction between us."
"I wonder if there are other couples on the ship?"
"Dunno. And I'm not going to read any minds. The deserve some privacy."