LEGAL STUFF: I don't own COWBOY BEBOP, this fic is strictly for fun and enjoyment of CB fans, blahzay blah.

Okay, here's another chapter. I am going somewhere with this fic, please be patient with me. No more triad terminology in this one, haha. A little something to explain who the heck Lornette is, and why she's in the fic at all. Also some more Faye action for the action buffs.



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"Here, watch this."

Spike pivoted left, his guard hand held high while his right spun in a quick attack at Lornette's eyes. She instinctively went back, spinning, and tripped over Spike's instep as he kicked her legs out from under her.

"Uh!"

Lornette caught herself on the way down and spun to her feet. Spike looked on appreciatively.

"I know Master Wong's taught you about that. Flinching's the third reflex you have to get rid of." Spike snapped a quick punch at Lornette's eyes. She laid back only a little bit, gritting her teeth.

"When I was young, I tried to do it by holding a lighter right in front of my eyes." Spike smiled in remembrance.

"Did that work?"

"Well, I burned my eyebrows off first, but .." Spike shrugged. Lornette giggled, showing a little smile for the first time all day.

Spike immediately straightened up. "Ahem. Well, in a fight, you can't flinch when someone goes for your eyes. Translate it like any other attack. Have a counterattack ready. Remember, an enemy throwing a punch at you is just giving you his arm to destroy."

They'd been scouting the perimeter for most of the morning. Lornette had laid gunpowder-sensing butterfly mines on the rooftops of the industrial buildings that surrounded the truck stop. When they were done, Spike had suggested a quick break. But Lornette had a slightly more active idea of what a "break" should consist of than Spike had had in mind, but he went along.

"Now, if the enemy has a gun, don't focus just on that. Watch his eyes, his shoulders. Most people will tense before they pull the trigger, even if just a little. You want to move then, not when you think you should, but when his eyes tell you to move. You have to be quick, but you have the chance to do it. You might still catch one, but it won't be where he's aiming to hit. Besides, anything's better than waiting to die." Spike pointed his finger at her. "Here, watch." He sighted down his thumb at her. "Tell me when I'm going to shoot."

Lornette tensed. Calm down, calm down. Watch his eyes, careful. God, he was just as amazing as she remembered, those eyes. One fake, not that one, the real one. She could sink into those eyes ...

"Bang." Spike looked quizzically at her. "Hey, you didn't move."

"Sorry," Lornette sighed. "I'm---let's try again." Stupid! Concentrate!

Spike frowned. He remembered her as a little girl, skinny and tall for fourteen, but still a child. Mace had seen to that. Even after that time with the White Tigers, she'd still been able to smile ...

He laid his finger at her head and waited. Okay, n---

Lornette dipped, her hips twisting, and exploded. Her legs snapped and drove her perfect, straight-line dragon-claw right into Spike's face. "Wha---"

"Sorry!" Lornette drew back, shocked. "Are you okay?"

Spike picked himself off the floor, rubbing his jaw. "Aayom. You're pretty fast. Did your father teach you that twist?"

"My mother."

Something in her voice made him sorry he'd asked. "Hey, let's take a break for now. You're getting too tough for me." He liked the way her eyes lit when he told her that.

Spike lit a cigarette and slouched down on the floor, resting against the wall. "You're faster than your dad," he commented. "He never was much for empty-hand."

"He always liked guns. They got the job done faster, he said." Lornette sighed. "Mom always yelled at him when he said that. Cowards fight with guns, that was what she said."

"Cowards are afraid to fight without a gun," Spike corrected. "Your mother was a good woman. And your grandmother, too."

Lornette's smile almost died, but a ghost of it danced on her lips. "You know, she never liked you."

Spike chuckled. "I was with your father. Why should she? But I liked her. She was an old woman, but she was never afraid."

"Nana wasn't afraid of anyone," Lornette said. "Not even my dad, and everyone was afraid of Dad." She looked up for a moment. "But she liked Mao. I never understood that. I mean, he told my father what to do."

"Mao was a good man. He was better at showing it than some people." Spike blew a smoke ring. Mao, you old timer, why didn't you see the shadow behind your back ....

"You know, I still remember that time, when you helped me." Why was she looking at him like that?

"The White Tigers?" Spike shook his head. "They should have known better than to go after Ho Nam's family."

"No, not that time." Lornette smiled, blinking rapidly. Why were tears coming now, and not when they'd been talking about her grandmother? "I was young, really young, maybe six or seven. It was behind the recreation center, the one back in the old neighborhood, East Tharsis. There were all these kids. Chinese kids, I think their fathers were with another triad. They were pulling my hair." Why did that still hurt, even now? "Hei guizi. Black devil. They were calling me that, I remember. I was running, but they had chased me down. One of them was really old, he was even older than you. But you came, you came and you knocked two of them down and told the rest of them to run for their lives, or you'd do the same to them." She smiled. "You didn't comb your hair then, either. You picked me up and took me back home, and that was when ..."

"That was when your father asked me if I wanted to be part of a family." Spike finished. "A real family."

The look in his eyes ... Lornette didn't know if it scared her or if it made her feel sad.

Spike smiled then, and she did too. "I didn't know who you were, I didn't even know who he was. The foster agency had just moved me there. I didn't know anyone." He crushed the cigarette out. "Funny, how that kind of thing mattered back then." He shook his head. "To some people."

"Why did you help me, if you didn't know who my Dad was?" she asked. "I remember, I ran past a lot of people, they weren't all Chinese, but they didn't do anything. I think they thought it was a prank---maybe they just didn't care. But you came."

"You don't carry a two-by-four to play a prank," Spike chuckled. "I remember that now. Five of them! On one tiny girl! I don't know. It made me angry."

"Weren't you scared, though?"

"Scared?" He laughed. "Were you scared today?" He gave her a broad, easy grin. "You know, you should really keep training. You have what it takes to be really good."

"But you must have been scared. You were young, then."

"I was three years younger than you are now. Give me some credit, okay, girl?" Spike put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. "Besides, when you're fighting for someone good, things don't hurt as much. You know?"

She guessed she did. Lornette sat down next to him, propping her hands behind her head and crossing her feet, consciously imitating his posture. "So are you going to help my father now, to kill Vicious?"

Spike cocked an eye at her. Her face had the trusting look of the young. Faye would laugh at her, he thought. She would laugh at me sitting here with her.

"Me and Vicious have things to settle," he said. "I owe your father a lot."

"What about your friend, the one back in Orphis?" Lornette wanted to know.

"Friend?" He stifled a snort. "You mean Faye? That woman's not a friend. More like a stone in your shoe, the kind you can't get rid of. That woman, she's no one's friend except to herself, maybe, and the casinos." Spike grimaced, making a cutting motion with his hand. "If you knew how much money that idiot woman's lost, how many bounties she's cost us, you'd puke. And never mind that she never tells the truth about anything. First time we met, she tells us that she's some Romani, then she claims to have been unfrozen 70 years ago and that she lived on Earth before the Gate Incident, if you can buy that. Delusional. One time, some fat guy, some old boyfriend, showed up and she ran off with him. THEN she turned him in for money! Let me tell you, if you ever run into her, don't trust a single thing she says. It'll always be some angle where she's looking to screw something out of you." He shuffled around in his jacket for another cigarette. "You know, it's good to have someone to talk to about this, not just the usual suspects. Sometimes I think I'll go crazy living on that ship. It's impossible with some people, you know?" He lit the cigarette and puffed.

Lornette looked at Spike's face. It was calm, even tranquil as he talked about that woman. She repressed a sad smile. Men were so transparent, and she was so stupid to even think ...

"What happened to---"

Spike was on his feet. "Hey, you know, we need to get back to your father. He's sure to be feeling better now."



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Faye spun Redtail upwards into the jetstream, turning towards the main route back to the gravity well. The night was inky blue. For a moment she wondered if there were any grocery stories still open. No way. She needed a shower, bad.

The kid was a nice kid, she thought. Not too many of those growing up nowadays. She looked sidelong at the cake box sitting next to her. The bullet holes didn't show from this side. Hmm. Maybe Jet wouldn't notice.

The damn cake had been Spike's idea, and now he was who knows where, getting into God knows what trouble. Damn him, where was he? Why did he have to just LEAVE, so quickly, without any thought at all, just leaving her to go chase off after strangers? "Idiots," she said. "Why do I even think about such fools? Wasting away my youth ... I was so much better off on my own."

The communicator crackled. Faye clicked it on, "Hello?"

"Faye Valentine," came an unfamiliar voice, harsh and angry.

"Eh, who's this?" Faye was already punching instructions on Redtail. Her eyes were hard. A thousand miles above her, a buzzer went off on the Bebop.

"My name's not important, Ms. Valentine. All we want is for you to deliver yourself to us, unarmed. If you give us the information we need, you will not be harmed." Faye snorted. "We're widebanding you a map of the Farida warehouse district. Follow it there and come alone. Or else your little friend here will suffer. Say something."

God, could Spike ...

Faye slapped her forehead as Tylor's frightened voice came on the line. "Uh, Faye, uh ... don't come---"

There was the sound of flesh hitting flesh, a muffled scream. The voice was back, huffing. "It'll be bad for him if you don't come."

"Bad for you too, right?" Faye put a sneer into her voice. "What's Vicious going to do to you, after you lost so many men already. To a woman, too. Or do you think he'll overlook that, so long as you can bring Spike in, right? Do you think he's going to go quietly?"

The voice on the communicator turned into a blind snarl of rage. Tylor screamed again in the background and Faye immediately regretted what she had said.

"I'll come," she said. "I'll be there."

"Two hours. If we see anyone besides you, if we see a gun on you, I'll put a knife in his liver. Personally." The communicator cut off.

Faye sighed. "Hey Ed, did you get that?"

"Roger-roger, Faye-faye."

"You can pinpoint where he was broadcasting from?"

"All done, Faye-faye."

"Good! Wideband it down to me. And go get Jet." The first rule of combat, she thought. He who shoots first, wins. Faye smiled to herself. She wasn't going to wait for the nasty voice to shoot first. Anything's better than waiting to die ... where had she heard that before?

Faye swung Redtail 180 degrees back towards Tylor's apartment complex. She had some things to pick up.



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Ho Nam got out of the stolen car. It was a funny thing, killing yourself. He hadn't thought it would feel this good. Nothing more to worry about, no more responsibilities. Even if the worst thing happened, he'd still end up dead. Ho Nam wondered if Spike had ever felt this way.

Vicious must still be hurt, he thought. Otherwise there was no way he'd leave this kind of thing to his flunkies. Was Lin waiting in the building up ahead? No, the Van had already sent him back to Tharsis, to clean up the mess left by Vicious' attempt to kill Spike the first time. That was one relief, at least. He patted the revolver at his side. Amazing that he'd been able to get this close already, no sentries. The building where he'd tracked the outgoing calls of Vicious' lieutenants was up ahead, the tallest on the block, a six-floor office building that was one of Red Dragon's front companies in the city. God, Vicious' boys were sloppy.

Wait, there was one. A dark-skinned, skinny boy and a chunkier friend, sitting in a car by the corner. The skinny boy was the alert one, even if he pretended to be looking at a porno mag. Good, a challenge.

Ho Nam got down on his belly and waited for the boy to check the other side of the street. One quick rush would do it. Wait, wait ........ okay---

The car exploded.

A monofighter screeched from above, twin 60mm autocannons blazing. Men running from the building went down in a fury of exploding concrete as the fighter swept its weapons over them. Ho Nam could barely make out a flash of dark hair at the controls as the fighter raked the lobby with its guns.

A booming sound from the building opposite; Ho Nam looked up and saw the long barrel of a .50-caliber sniper rifle extending from the roof of a third-floor house above him. The rifle roared and a window opposite in the Red Dragon's building shattered. Ho Nam knew that the gunner was picking off whoever showed themselves across the street, restricting the movements of the men inside.

The fighter dropped low and the cockpit went back. Ho Nam gasped as a slim woman jumped out, a H&K submachine gun in one hand and a pistol in the other. She ran into the lobby. The submachine gun blazed inside and Ho Nam could hear hoarse male screaming.

Old man, why are you still standing here?

He ran to join her.



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Poker Alice, that was what that cold-eyed casino owner had called her before. Huh, Faye thought. Did Poker Alice ever have to deal with this kind of crap?

She crouched low in the stairwell. A spray of rifle fire chewed into the wall above her head. Wait for that reload, she thought.

Footsteps. Faye aimed her Glock at the doorway she'd just come from, biting her lip. Come on, she thought.

"It's a friend," came a throaty, deep voice. "I'm a friend of Spike." A man poked his head into view, hands held high.

It was the Chinese man who Spike had recognized, the one whom he'd chased after. A gigantic revolver was in one hand and death's head grin on his face. "My name's Chan Ho Nam." He squatted low beside her. Her Glock still tracked him.

"Who are you?"

"Don't worry." Ho Nam pulled a grenade from his short jacket. "I'm Spike's friend, and Vicious' enemy." He pulled the pin with his teeth, counted to three, and threw it in a high arc. Panicked shouting and a loud explosion blew at the top of the stairwell.

"Come on!"

He was already leading the way, plunging into the smoke and dust. Faye followed, the H&K in front of her. An explosion of automatic fire ripped the hall and Faye hit the deck; Ho Nam's revolver was booming. The smoke cleared and Faye saw three bodies at the end of a long hallway. A row of doors stood at the end, fronted by a pair of wrecked, twisted desks. Faye blinked her eyes and coughed. "God---"

Two of the doors popped open and Faye let go with both guns. Her bullets ripped both doorways, shredding gunmen and plaster indiscriminately. She let the H&K climb, gutting a dark-skinned gunman and two more behind him; her trigger finger worked metronomically on the Glock, pounding .45 rounds into the cloud of dust and dying ahead of them. Faye could glimpse men falling backwards, screaming in the midst of it all, but all that was blotted out by the burning in her arms and wrists as she kept the guns up and firing. Had to keep firing until they were all down, all dead.

Her H&K clicked empty, and her Glock a second after that. Faye let her arms fall in relief and ducked back into the cover of the stairway. She dumped her clips and began reloading.

"Miss, you're quite a shot," said Ho Nam. He jumped up, fired twice, ducked back. "You know, with a gun you're as good as Spike."

Faye looked at him, startled for a moment. He flashed a quick grin and then was gone, charging down the hallway. More gunfire, shouting in Chinese and English. Faye shouted, "Wait, Goddammit!"

Well, she supposed Spike had learned this crap from someone ....

Faye only noticed now that her ears were ringing. The gunfire was fading into the distance now, though she still heard pounding steps. More of them coming. Was he still alive?

Pounding steps behind her. Faye began to turn; cold metal pressed against her back. Terror shot into her mind, and a sudden, shocking regret. Spike ...



Okay, sorry to end on a cliffhanger, but I'm pretty swamped with work .... PLEASE review!