Faye dodged the incoming claws, watching a few strands of her hair get cut away. With good agility, Faye hopped away from Jagged Edge, but the monstrous killer pursued. Faye toppled a large table towards Edge, but Jagged Edge easily sliced and diced the table to splinters and headed for his prey. Faye tripped over a piece of the table and landed right on her ass, ready for the taking.
"FAYE!!" Spike screamed.
When Edge was about to lunge for Faye, Spike leaped right in and threw a powerful, right roundhouse kick right into Edge's gut, knocking the breath out of him. The Bruce Lee fanatic stood between Faye and the assassin, looking like a ferocious tiger protecting his mate from a rabid beast.
"Why don't you tangle with me?" Spike asked. Jagged Edge chuckled to himself.
"Hey, I know you. You're the nutcase who brought down the Red Dragon Clan, not to mention Mad Pierrot. You're either one badass motherf#*&@er or the luckiest son of a bitch in the entire galaxy. Which one are ya?" Jagged Edge asked.
"... why don't you find out for yourself?" Spike asked. Without hesitating, Edge ran towards Spike and slashed for Spike's face, hoping to rip Spike's face off. Spike dodged it with finesse, keeping his footwork well-polished. Edge slashed downward towards Spike's chest, but Spike sidestepped to the left and easily slapped Edge's claws away. Spike followed with a two quick right roundhouse kicks to the head, a series of punches to the ribs, and left palm-heel strike to Edge's chin. The powerful heel strike knocked him away from Faye.
"Faye, are you all right?" Spike quickly asked, keeping his fists up towards the downed Edge. That very question stunned the bejesus out of her.
"Yeah, I'm fine. The only thing that got hurt is my pride," Faye said, shaking the splinters of wood off her. Spike helped Faye up from the rubble and checked if she got injured in any way.
"HEY, YOU TWO! A LITTLE HELP HERE!" Jet shouted. What Spike and Faye saw to their side was Jet Black giving Jagged Edge a good full-nelson hold, in which Jet wrapped his arms under Edge's armpits and locked his hands together behind Edge's head. Jet felt his shoulder muscles and his metal-arm transistors straining from the hold, feeling Edge's strength rivaling his own.
"I don't know how much longer I can hold him. Knock out this freakin' hulk, will ya?" Jet asked. Wasting no time, Spike and Faye headed right for the trapped Jagged Edge and went all out. Faye delivered a powerful roundhouse kick to Edge's ribs, good enough to shatter bones. After Faye was done, Spike threw a vicious right hook into Edge's skull.
Feeling annoyed by the cowboys, Edge used Jet's full-nelson hold, lifted both his legs off the ground and delivered a pair of heel kicks to Spike's and Faye's chins. After watching both cowboys hit the ground, Edge bent his head down rammed Jet's face with the back of his own skull. Jet released Edge and felt his back hit the ground really hard, groaning and weakly rubbing his forehead.
Edge smiled to himself as he saw the Bebop trio at his mercy. Jet and Faye were out cold, looking as though they bought a one-way ticket to slumberland. As for Spike, he weakly turned over and rubbed his head to shake off the dizziness. With a crooked smile, Jagged Edge stomped his way to Faye and kneeled down to the unconscious cowboy.
"Hey there, pretty girl. While you sleep, I don't think you'd mind if I do you right here. You look so damn tasty, I just got to have you..." Kneeling down to the unconscious Faye, Edge licked his lips viciously, looking as though he was about have dessert. Jagged Edge brought one claw to Faye's cleavage and began to cut her shirt off. With a mean grin, Edge yearned to watch her breasts pop out of her skimpy outfit. Faye's eyes slowly began to open.
"... no... stop..." Faye whispered weakly. Her pleads only made Edge chuckle to himself. Licking the top of his lips, Edge ripped Faye's shirt right off. When Faye tried to push Edge away, he straddled on Faye and pinned her wrists to the floor. Edge let out a breath of lust when he got a good look at Faye's breasts. A tear streamed down Faye's eye when she smelled the stench of his breath.
"GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU SICK BASTARD!" Spike tackled Jagged Edge off of Faye and rammed him right through the window. People outside felt their hearts jump and ran away when they watched Spike and Edge crash right out of the restaurant, fearing their lives could be at risk. Feeling the rage boil from within, Spike straddled on Edge and rammed his right fist into Edge's jaw. Spike watched the blood fly out of Edge's jaw from the impact, but it wasn't enough for the space cowboy. Spike threw a left fist, and a right, and a left, and another right. Many of the innocent bystanders were watching, but none dared to interfere.
With eyes of rage, Spike lifted Jagged Edge's head off the sidewalk by the hair and raised his right fist. A tear streamed down his face when he growled with rage.
"I SWEAR..."
Spike rammed his fist into Edge's nose.
"... IF YOU EVER..."
He rammed it into Edge's face again.
"... PUT YOUR FILTHY HANDS ON HER..."
He smashed his nose again, breaking it.
"...I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN LIKE A DOG!!"
Still in the rage, Spike continued to beat Edge's skull to a pulp. All Edge could do was twitch a finger.
"YOU WILL NEVER HURT HER! NEVER!!"
~~slam~~
"NEVER!!"
~~slam~~
"NEVER!!"
~~slam~~
"NEVER!!"
~~slam~~
"SPIKE, THAT'S ENOUGH! YOU'RE KILLING HIM!!" Jet shouted.
Jet and Faye pulled Spike right off of the bloodied Jagged Edge. The gambler and the mastermind each held onto Spike's arms, hoping the martial arts cowboy won't blow their bounty away. Wearing her red sweater, Faye had a harder time restraining Spike than Jet was. As for Jet, his problem wasn't Spike's strength but his stubbornness. Spike has provened he was twice as stubborn as a bronco.
"Spike, it's okay! He can't hurt us anymore. It's over..." Faye said.
When Spike heard Faye's words, his raged slowly died down. Letting out a sigh of relief, Spike closed his eyes and let his head droop while Jet and Faye still held onto him.
"It's never over...." Spike whispered to himself.
------------------------
"OH YEAH! Nothing makes me feel more alive than having 50,000,000 woolings in our pockets!" Jet said. Jet, Faye and Spike walked out of the Mars Police Department after they got the reward money into the Bebop's account. Faye and Jet were side by side, smiling about their achievement and happy Spike didn't sit out on the plan when given the opportunity. Spike was a few feet behind the two, eyes down to the sidewalk and hands in his pockets.
"I know what I'm gonna do with all those woolongs! There's gonna be a major horse race on Saturn, and my favorite race-horse is gonna be there! Let's bet all the woolongs on my horse and triple the amount!" Faye said.
"No chance, Faye. I'm the one who masterminded the plan, and I'M the one who discovered Jagged Edge as being a gold mine for us! We're gonna use that money to do some major upgrading for the Bebop! Gun turrets, new armor, new weapons for our fighter ships, the works!" Jet stated.
"It's true you're the one who masterminded his arrest, but it was Spike that brought him down," Faye said, smiling to herself. Jet let out a chuckle.
"You got a point there, Faye," Jet said. With a bewildered look, Jet took a look at Spike. Then he set his eyes on Faye.
"Is something wrong with Spike? He's been unusually quiet ever since we sent Jagged Edge to the authorities," Jet said.
"I... I don't know, Jet. A few days earlier, I actually saw Spike cry," Faye whispered, feeling her soul being as heavy as lead from thinking about that moment.
"He WHAT?!" Jet asked.
"Yeah, it's true. Ever since we rescued Spike, I could sense that something is eating him up. It's almost as though he's a totally different person now," Faye said.
"Well, let's try to loosen him up a bit," Jet said. Jet cleared his throat.
"Hey, Spike! What do think we should do with all that money we earned?" Jet asked.
With a solemn look on his face, Spike kept his head hanging down and his hands in his pockets.
"Spike? Jet asked you a question. You in dreamland?" Faye asked, turning her attention to the Bruce Lee fanatic. Suddenly, Spike stopped at his tracks.
"... I'm not in a dream. None of this is a dream at all. It's all for real... all of it..."
Puzzled from what Spike said, Jet and Faye stopped walking and faced him.
"What are you talking about, man? You're not making any sense," Jet said. Feeling weak in the legs, Spike took a seat at an empty bench nearby. Spike let his shoulders slump and kept his eyes hidden in the shadows when he rested his elbows on his knees.
"... how... how could I have been so damn stupid?"
A tear dripped out of Spike's left eye and splattered on the sidewalk.
Feeling the emptiness building in, Spike rested his head on his left hand and let another tear drip on the sidewalk. Taken off-guard by Spike's behavior, Faye sat next to Spike and gently rubbed his shoulders with her soft hands.
"Most of my life, I believed that I was living in a nightmare, a world with nothing but chaos. I believed it was all just a play, and I was a mere character. I finally realized that... this is all for real when I took on Vicious and the Red Dragons... when Faye was being violated.... when...."
More tears streamed down Spike's face when a vision appeared in his left eye. Through his eye, Spike saw himself on the rooftops, hold a dying woman in his arms when the rain poured down like crazy. Spike started to lose feeling in his hands. Spike lifted his head and set his eyes on the very rooftop where the darkest moment occurred.
"... when Julia died in my arms." Feeling the anguish consuming him like a rabid monster, Spike bit down on his lower lip, let the shadows consume his eyes and quietly sobbed. Spike could feel some of his tears stream down his cheeks and get the collar of his shirt a little wet. His fists resting on his lap clenched from the dark moment that could never leave him alone.
Faye has never seen this side of Spike before: for the first time, Spike was actually in touch with his feelings. With a trembling jaw, Faye wrapped her arms around him and did her best to comfort him.
"Shhhh.... it's okay, Gowljo... Just let it out..." Faye whispered. Continuing to sob quietly and not bothering to wipe the tears away, Spike gently held onto one of Faye's hands on his waist.
"It was all my fault. I convinced her that all this was nothing more than a dream. That was why she died.
"Oh, Julia... I'm so sorry... I'm so damn sorry..."
Standing beside Spike, Jet felt his sorrow for his comrade taking a firm grip on him. Jet walked behind the bench and gently placed his cybernetic hand on Spike's shoulder.
"It's all right, little brother. We'll help you get through this... everything will be all right..."
***When the white female cat died... the tiger-striped cat cried a million times....***
... to be continued.
"FAYE!!" Spike screamed.
When Edge was about to lunge for Faye, Spike leaped right in and threw a powerful, right roundhouse kick right into Edge's gut, knocking the breath out of him. The Bruce Lee fanatic stood between Faye and the assassin, looking like a ferocious tiger protecting his mate from a rabid beast.
"Why don't you tangle with me?" Spike asked. Jagged Edge chuckled to himself.
"Hey, I know you. You're the nutcase who brought down the Red Dragon Clan, not to mention Mad Pierrot. You're either one badass motherf#*&@er or the luckiest son of a bitch in the entire galaxy. Which one are ya?" Jagged Edge asked.
"... why don't you find out for yourself?" Spike asked. Without hesitating, Edge ran towards Spike and slashed for Spike's face, hoping to rip Spike's face off. Spike dodged it with finesse, keeping his footwork well-polished. Edge slashed downward towards Spike's chest, but Spike sidestepped to the left and easily slapped Edge's claws away. Spike followed with a two quick right roundhouse kicks to the head, a series of punches to the ribs, and left palm-heel strike to Edge's chin. The powerful heel strike knocked him away from Faye.
"Faye, are you all right?" Spike quickly asked, keeping his fists up towards the downed Edge. That very question stunned the bejesus out of her.
"Yeah, I'm fine. The only thing that got hurt is my pride," Faye said, shaking the splinters of wood off her. Spike helped Faye up from the rubble and checked if she got injured in any way.
"HEY, YOU TWO! A LITTLE HELP HERE!" Jet shouted. What Spike and Faye saw to their side was Jet Black giving Jagged Edge a good full-nelson hold, in which Jet wrapped his arms under Edge's armpits and locked his hands together behind Edge's head. Jet felt his shoulder muscles and his metal-arm transistors straining from the hold, feeling Edge's strength rivaling his own.
"I don't know how much longer I can hold him. Knock out this freakin' hulk, will ya?" Jet asked. Wasting no time, Spike and Faye headed right for the trapped Jagged Edge and went all out. Faye delivered a powerful roundhouse kick to Edge's ribs, good enough to shatter bones. After Faye was done, Spike threw a vicious right hook into Edge's skull.
Feeling annoyed by the cowboys, Edge used Jet's full-nelson hold, lifted both his legs off the ground and delivered a pair of heel kicks to Spike's and Faye's chins. After watching both cowboys hit the ground, Edge bent his head down rammed Jet's face with the back of his own skull. Jet released Edge and felt his back hit the ground really hard, groaning and weakly rubbing his forehead.
Edge smiled to himself as he saw the Bebop trio at his mercy. Jet and Faye were out cold, looking as though they bought a one-way ticket to slumberland. As for Spike, he weakly turned over and rubbed his head to shake off the dizziness. With a crooked smile, Jagged Edge stomped his way to Faye and kneeled down to the unconscious cowboy.
"Hey there, pretty girl. While you sleep, I don't think you'd mind if I do you right here. You look so damn tasty, I just got to have you..." Kneeling down to the unconscious Faye, Edge licked his lips viciously, looking as though he was about have dessert. Jagged Edge brought one claw to Faye's cleavage and began to cut her shirt off. With a mean grin, Edge yearned to watch her breasts pop out of her skimpy outfit. Faye's eyes slowly began to open.
"... no... stop..." Faye whispered weakly. Her pleads only made Edge chuckle to himself. Licking the top of his lips, Edge ripped Faye's shirt right off. When Faye tried to push Edge away, he straddled on Faye and pinned her wrists to the floor. Edge let out a breath of lust when he got a good look at Faye's breasts. A tear streamed down Faye's eye when she smelled the stench of his breath.
"GET AWAY FROM HER, YOU SICK BASTARD!" Spike tackled Jagged Edge off of Faye and rammed him right through the window. People outside felt their hearts jump and ran away when they watched Spike and Edge crash right out of the restaurant, fearing their lives could be at risk. Feeling the rage boil from within, Spike straddled on Edge and rammed his right fist into Edge's jaw. Spike watched the blood fly out of Edge's jaw from the impact, but it wasn't enough for the space cowboy. Spike threw a left fist, and a right, and a left, and another right. Many of the innocent bystanders were watching, but none dared to interfere.
With eyes of rage, Spike lifted Jagged Edge's head off the sidewalk by the hair and raised his right fist. A tear streamed down his face when he growled with rage.
"I SWEAR..."
Spike rammed his fist into Edge's nose.
"... IF YOU EVER..."
He rammed it into Edge's face again.
"... PUT YOUR FILTHY HANDS ON HER..."
He smashed his nose again, breaking it.
"...I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN LIKE A DOG!!"
Still in the rage, Spike continued to beat Edge's skull to a pulp. All Edge could do was twitch a finger.
"YOU WILL NEVER HURT HER! NEVER!!"
~~slam~~
"NEVER!!"
~~slam~~
"NEVER!!"
~~slam~~
"NEVER!!"
~~slam~~
"SPIKE, THAT'S ENOUGH! YOU'RE KILLING HIM!!" Jet shouted.
Jet and Faye pulled Spike right off of the bloodied Jagged Edge. The gambler and the mastermind each held onto Spike's arms, hoping the martial arts cowboy won't blow their bounty away. Wearing her red sweater, Faye had a harder time restraining Spike than Jet was. As for Jet, his problem wasn't Spike's strength but his stubbornness. Spike has provened he was twice as stubborn as a bronco.
"Spike, it's okay! He can't hurt us anymore. It's over..." Faye said.
When Spike heard Faye's words, his raged slowly died down. Letting out a sigh of relief, Spike closed his eyes and let his head droop while Jet and Faye still held onto him.
"It's never over...." Spike whispered to himself.
------------------------
"OH YEAH! Nothing makes me feel more alive than having 50,000,000 woolings in our pockets!" Jet said. Jet, Faye and Spike walked out of the Mars Police Department after they got the reward money into the Bebop's account. Faye and Jet were side by side, smiling about their achievement and happy Spike didn't sit out on the plan when given the opportunity. Spike was a few feet behind the two, eyes down to the sidewalk and hands in his pockets.
"I know what I'm gonna do with all those woolongs! There's gonna be a major horse race on Saturn, and my favorite race-horse is gonna be there! Let's bet all the woolongs on my horse and triple the amount!" Faye said.
"No chance, Faye. I'm the one who masterminded the plan, and I'M the one who discovered Jagged Edge as being a gold mine for us! We're gonna use that money to do some major upgrading for the Bebop! Gun turrets, new armor, new weapons for our fighter ships, the works!" Jet stated.
"It's true you're the one who masterminded his arrest, but it was Spike that brought him down," Faye said, smiling to herself. Jet let out a chuckle.
"You got a point there, Faye," Jet said. With a bewildered look, Jet took a look at Spike. Then he set his eyes on Faye.
"Is something wrong with Spike? He's been unusually quiet ever since we sent Jagged Edge to the authorities," Jet said.
"I... I don't know, Jet. A few days earlier, I actually saw Spike cry," Faye whispered, feeling her soul being as heavy as lead from thinking about that moment.
"He WHAT?!" Jet asked.
"Yeah, it's true. Ever since we rescued Spike, I could sense that something is eating him up. It's almost as though he's a totally different person now," Faye said.
"Well, let's try to loosen him up a bit," Jet said. Jet cleared his throat.
"Hey, Spike! What do think we should do with all that money we earned?" Jet asked.
With a solemn look on his face, Spike kept his head hanging down and his hands in his pockets.
"Spike? Jet asked you a question. You in dreamland?" Faye asked, turning her attention to the Bruce Lee fanatic. Suddenly, Spike stopped at his tracks.
"... I'm not in a dream. None of this is a dream at all. It's all for real... all of it..."
Puzzled from what Spike said, Jet and Faye stopped walking and faced him.
"What are you talking about, man? You're not making any sense," Jet said. Feeling weak in the legs, Spike took a seat at an empty bench nearby. Spike let his shoulders slump and kept his eyes hidden in the shadows when he rested his elbows on his knees.
"... how... how could I have been so damn stupid?"
A tear dripped out of Spike's left eye and splattered on the sidewalk.
Feeling the emptiness building in, Spike rested his head on his left hand and let another tear drip on the sidewalk. Taken off-guard by Spike's behavior, Faye sat next to Spike and gently rubbed his shoulders with her soft hands.
"Most of my life, I believed that I was living in a nightmare, a world with nothing but chaos. I believed it was all just a play, and I was a mere character. I finally realized that... this is all for real when I took on Vicious and the Red Dragons... when Faye was being violated.... when...."
More tears streamed down Spike's face when a vision appeared in his left eye. Through his eye, Spike saw himself on the rooftops, hold a dying woman in his arms when the rain poured down like crazy. Spike started to lose feeling in his hands. Spike lifted his head and set his eyes on the very rooftop where the darkest moment occurred.
"... when Julia died in my arms." Feeling the anguish consuming him like a rabid monster, Spike bit down on his lower lip, let the shadows consume his eyes and quietly sobbed. Spike could feel some of his tears stream down his cheeks and get the collar of his shirt a little wet. His fists resting on his lap clenched from the dark moment that could never leave him alone.
Faye has never seen this side of Spike before: for the first time, Spike was actually in touch with his feelings. With a trembling jaw, Faye wrapped her arms around him and did her best to comfort him.
"Shhhh.... it's okay, Gowljo... Just let it out..." Faye whispered. Continuing to sob quietly and not bothering to wipe the tears away, Spike gently held onto one of Faye's hands on his waist.
"It was all my fault. I convinced her that all this was nothing more than a dream. That was why she died.
"Oh, Julia... I'm so sorry... I'm so damn sorry..."
Standing beside Spike, Jet felt his sorrow for his comrade taking a firm grip on him. Jet walked behind the bench and gently placed his cybernetic hand on Spike's shoulder.
"It's all right, little brother. We'll help you get through this... everything will be all right..."
***When the white female cat died... the tiger-striped cat cried a million times....***
... to be continued.
