SEQ CHAPTER h r 1Collection
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'Shin...do you know who the enemy is... the man who killed your brother.' She prods smoothly, I'm alone in a dark room, a single woman stands before me with a man behind her. Julia stands there like an ice sculpture pose, ethereal, poised, signet and cold. She holds a gun to me, Spike's Jericho...He now stands behind her, his hands around her supportive, but, his eyes aren't on me or she...his eyes are looking elsewhere as if not liking the situation...
'You know what to do Shin, in order for you to get the girl, you need to get rid of the villain..go finish what Spike started.' Her voice lilts across the room with a purpose and hiss. I feel sweat drip down my brow.
'Vicious.' I state with a confirmed tone, my mouth dry, my eyes wide. Vicious the villain...
'Dammit Shin!' I whip behind me to see Lin, standing there horrified.
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"Hey Shin, who were you talking to in there?" I shoot up with a start...did I really fall asleep? Everything after the conversation with Vicious hours ago was a blur. The lump in my throat immediately clears and my slanted eyes return to there normal size after convulsing from wide and narrow. I knocked my cardboard box over when he told me he was hired to kill me. I don't know why, but an unspeakable panic filled me when he clipped those words, as if my life was going to disappear.
"No one Jet." I hastily place back the cardboard box, putting the communicator in my pocket, I know Vicious' number, E16V3, and so I can call him if that matters any. I open the door to reveal Jet and a woman beside him, with cropped black hair and sepia eyes. She looks to be in her early thirties and has an elegant glow around her.
"Shin this is Alisa, she will be staying on Bebop with us from now on." Elisa, that woman that Jet mentioned is ironically here. She looks familiar, but I don't know from where...but I swear I have seen her face before.
"Hey there Alisa welcome aboard." I try to make my painted teal eyes happy and light, but there is just so much looming over my head right now, my instinct beckons me to go to Mars, but my brain warns that I might put Jet and Ed in danger over my adventure.
"Hello Shin Tashjian, has Jet been driving you crazy?" I laughed lightly, in spite of her figuring out my last name, I could have sworn that I didn't tell him or Faye...perhaps Spike told him or something. I exit the doorway of my room and walk with Jet and Alisa to the common room.
"Ed wants to play with the pretty ladyyyyyyyyyyyy!" I whistled and put my hands behind my head as Ed summons all her strength to leap thirty feet across the room and land clinging to Elisa's legs. Unable to move, a flash of annoyance and humor spread across her face as she leaned down and proceeded to tickle Ed. Personally, I never knew Ed was ticklish until Ed jumped three times her body height in the air and proceeded to laugh like a banshee across the room.She can handle kids, that is a plus, now Ed wont be so bored because Faye isn't here...
She is hunted by hitmen...and I wish I was there to help her.
"Jet I need to talk to you–" I was cut off mid sentence
"You know Jet I am extremely hungry, let's have some dinner and chat, I'd like to do some catching up...I mean, since we left on a bad note." She leaned up against Jet in a loving way, and I ran a hand through my pushed back hair, She is so nice and kind, yet so familiar, and so mysterious...Did Jet go pick her up? Or did she bump into him while getting some groceries or something... nothing makes sense. I'm glad Jet has someone to talk to who is a bit sane.
"Alright I'll whip up some bell peppers and Beef...with actual beef." He walks with a bounce in his step to the kitchen and puts on his apron, I steal a glance over to Alisa, her eyes are filled with an unexplainable emotion, grief, guilt, duty perhaps...if the sky weren't blue I'd say she was hiding something...but then again...aren't we all?
"Pretty Lady, my Ed paint your toenails, Pleeeeeeasssssee?" Ed squeals at the top of her lungs as she attempts to re-latch onto her legs, Alisa dodges with a fighter's grace. Ed misses and slides, in a discombobulated shuffle into the corridor to Faye's room. She emerges as a hyperactive raccoon with an assortment of blue shades of nail polish. Thank goodness I'm a guy, I could just imagine the horror of Ed trying to paint your nails day in and out.
"Why don't you go paint the dogs nails?" I impute humorously, I see an eyebrow quirk from Alisa as Ed proceeds to chase the terrified Welsh corgi around the Bebop common room with an open bottle of nail polish splattering on the vinyl yellow couch upholstery. If you cant beat them, watch them beat someone else.
"So Shin, what has happened to Jet these past years, he seems…almost more cheerful, but I don't see why." I turn to her, she reminds me of someone, sweet serene, yet sad. Her sepia eyes search me for an answer.
"Many things have happened to Jet in the past three years…actually a lot has happened to a lot of people." I pause to run my head through my pushed back hair, my teal eyes focusing on a tile on the floor near her feet. "As far as I know, Ed left for a while then his friend Spike was killed, which only left him and Faye." I pause as I see her eyes taper…"After a while Ed came back Faye went looking for Spikes killer, and I was ord—trying to find him as well. One thing led to another and now I am here on Bebop, Faye out somewhere." I plop my self down on the vinyl chair, aware of the blue splatter marks. She sits opposite me on the couch, looking at me with a glint in her eye, one that reminds me of the Syndicates interrogators.
"What of Spike Spiegel's killer, is he alive?" I swallow a lump in my throat…wait…I never said Spikes last name…
"Presumed dead." I lick my lips and spurt out a short straight answer. She leans foreword and I lean back, draping my arms on the back of the couch, Ed's squeals can me heard faintly from the room, in spite of the hissing of the stove and the whirring of the looming ceiling fan. Like sickles connected to a perpetual vicious cycle.
"I see…sorry if it was like I was prying, I really am too curious for a woman of my age." She chuckles softly, I laugh with her, in spite of a minute sense of foreboding, I need to tell Jet about Vicious and what he said…and I need to figure out why Alisa can figure out names of people like me, Syndicate members' last names are usually confidential…I don't even know Vicious' last name. Silence envelopes me, even though the ceiling fan slices above me…I loose my head in thought.
"Dinner time!" Jet comes out, apron and all, and sits next to Alisa on the couch. I look at the steaming plate of food, yet all my appetite is dry and empty, I pick up my chopsticks anyway. Yet before I can talk, Alisa speaks up
"So Jet, who is this Faye Valentine I keep hearing about?" I wonder why she waited to ask Jet this, but I suppose she feels more familiar with Jet
"A purple haired green eyed Shrew she is a bounty hunter, a money stealer, complainer, ill tempered, has a bad attitude…every man's nightmare." He crosses his thick arms and frowns, but I see his mouth even into a thin smile.
"Where is she now?" I pull my lips into a frown, she is very curious I don't completely trust her, even if she is a good friend of Jet's and Jet doesn't make friends with Syndicate mobsters and such. I inwardly laugh at the contradictory statement I made in my mind…nonetheless I cannot trust her, women can be as deceitful and as destructive as men, Julia is a good example.
"She told me she took a waitress job on earth…why?" He looks at her with a curious glance I keep my eyes on the table in front of me picking up my plate of food.
"Because she isn't on Earth, she is on Mars, in the city of Phoenix." I dropped my plate, food splattering everywhere, my slanted eyes wide…how does she know so much...I am the only one besides Vicious who know she is even there! Alisa's presence here is not a coincidence…
Rain, I suppose, is a change for the better from the goddamned hail on Callisto. I walk tall in the rain as my silver hair mats and slicks itself to my forehead and the back of my neck. The rest drapes around me like a veil of liquid steel. My titanium eyes narrow pensively as I recall Daemon's face...so familiar...where do I know him? Then my mind bounces the words she said to me...that I didn't have an identity and my pride was meaningless. My eyes shift to my katana at my waist...
Why am I even doing this? Then I remember why I should be doing this...I'm doing it to find out what the Red Dragon Syndicate is up to. Why hire hitmen to take out Faye and Shin instead of the more inexpensive and easier ordeal of a bounty. Why bother keeping it private? Then it hits me...I don't have an identity...Everyone thinks I'm dead…or do they?
Is this a trap to lure me out, to figure out where I am?
"Daemon...he looks familiar also now that I think of it." I try to trigger my sharp mind to figure out why he looks familiar. Is he out for revenge, is he out for a fight, or is it something that is much more different…perhaps he wants to use me for the Syndicates disposal once more.
I look up from across the rainy street to Faye's apartment window, shaded, but silhouettes of people are clearly shown in the shade. I pause in the rain, people with umbrellas float past me like leaves in a stream…there is someone in her apartment. I narrow my titanium shards and utter a small curse. My liquid silver hair flaps behind me and my black cloak billows thickly as I bound across the street, my long legs fully extended.
I run into the alley beside the building, bending my legs and jumping with the precision of a true assassin upwards to the wet ladder of the slick fire escape, propelling forewords with my swinging well-built arms. I flip midair and unsheathe my katana mid-flip. I come upon her small apartment window. My katana is in my left hand at my side…its blade dripping with silent rain. Frowning, I take two steps back and charge full force at the glass window. I feel the impact of the screaming glass only slightly as I dive into a roll and kneel on the linoleum floor. Twin shards of titanium search for the intruder. A slight faint sign of foreboding is overpowered by the controlled cunning and fighter instincts.
"Hey who are you?" I tilt my head to the right shards of titanium sharpen at the amateur. Yet, this is one person I did not expect, this man with blonde curly hair and the smirk is an ignorant replica of my old acquaintance Spike. I notice he has a katana also, only it is in poor condition and I bet he doesn't know how to use it.
"How pathetic." I spring like a stealth jaguar and whip my body to face him; his eyes don't show fear or readiness, just an aloofness that makes my blood curdle. I swing my katana in a one-handed upwards strike, he dodges the blow barely, taking a swatch of his clothing with me.
"Hey, no fair I wasn't expecting a fight!" He unsheathes his katana, which is shorter than mine by a few inches. He swiftly charges and I parry his attack with a practiced ease. With a small tilt of a lip, I fling his weapon, cart wheeling through the air, sticking into the wall behind me. The blade sings and vibrates in the drywall next to the spectator dog; who almost seems to be enjoying that the fight is going in my favor.
He then takes his leg and swings it at my side, as it connects glaringly, I manage to take my elbow and jab him in the stomach. He doubles over and I take a fraction to recuperate from the unexpected blow. From his doubled over state I flip him up in the air by the collar of his shirt and throw him onto the ground, my katana at his throat instantly.
"Hey—Ok—you win already…now let me up!" What kind of assassin is this? Is he playing stupid? Does he not know what kind of situation he is in? I hear a noise to my right, towards the doorway the dog was standing in, wagging her stump of a tail.
"Andy what in he hell did you do?!" The shrill brassy voice of Faye floods through my ears as I allow my gray-blue eyes to gaze upon her though my peripheral vision. She is in her bathrobe and her hair is up in a towel-turban. Her jade eyes are wide with surprise, mine widen with confusion, if this is not an assassin but someone she knows…then she must be still hung up on Spike.
"You know this imbecile…" I remove my katana from his throat swiftly and sheathing it, if I need to, I can defeat him without a weapon. He stands up with a cocky tilt of a chin.
"Of course she knows me, I'm Andy the Samurai. You must be new here 'cause I'm Famous here in Phoenix. I own a restaurant!" He annoys me. I grit my teeth as my patience wears thin, there must be some mistake, his nonchalant attitude and his appearance is resembling too much of Spike, and I can tell that she notices that I know that.
"Andy, can you leave…NOW?" She growls and points out towards the door in the other room, He brushes dust off of his shoulder and plucks his katana from the wall and sheathes it with an extravagant flourish. I roll my eyes. The next action takes me by surprise, he takes Faye's hand, and kisses it lightly as he leaves; the heat of my blood rises a few degrees as I pretend with my cool façade to not care.
"I see you still like Spike, by the company you surround yourself with." I spit dryly as I look at her expression on her face, the dog smiling at door where Andy left.
"Of course I liked Spike…he was…a good comrade, Andy has little to do with it, I met him when Spike was still alive." She sat down proudly, in a wooden chair that somehow eluded being destroyed in the fight. I could not ignore the way my heart tightened when she said she liked Spike, my old rival, the man I killed, the guy who stole my first lover and won't leave me alone.
"I know why you and Shin are on the Syndicate's hit-list." Her emerald eyes shift upwards to me with curiosity, and I feel my heart speed up a fraction. Her emerald eyes, even unadorned with makeup, are sparkling and entrancing, her full, pink lips done in a small circle.
"Why?! What did I do this time?" I narrow my gray blue eyes and my fist clenches unnoticed by my side. Her emerald eyes looking up at me, the terrycloth bathrobe draped about her like a cloud.
"They want to kill you so when I find out you are dead, it will lure me out of stealth so the Syndicate can find me. Although, things have not gone according to plan. They apparently do not know I am a hitman, especially the hitman assigned to kill Shin. So their 'surprise killing' was foiled because you two are aware of the hitmen." I pause waiting for her reaction.
"So you are saying this whole thing is to lure you out of hiding? I thought they thought you were dead! This makes no fucking sense…Why use us as lures?" She stands up, the chair behind her crumples to the floor, her eyes narrow in a brooding rage.
"I suppose they wanted to kill the people who they thought I was attached to the most. The most logical motive that comes to mind is they want to torture and kill me, but it is unclear why." I hear a small laugh emit from her lips, as she takes another step towards me and smirks.
"And are they right? Are you attached to me?" She asks in a soft tone…her emerald eyes flitting down to the linoleum floor like butterflies. I take her hand in my still damp hand from the rain, and kiss it copying the one that Andy did earlier, my lips warm for a moment, craving a bit more.
"Unfortunately." I state, my lips smirking slightly, her emerald eyes narrow and shimmer like the oceans on Earth… She stomps off into the other room, beyond the one the dog is in. Princess is prancing about the house; mocking the violet haired woman…the dog turns and yips quickly before turning a few times and falls asleep in the middle of the living room.
I kick up the wooden chair and sit in it, leaning back on its shaky legs. There is only one person left between me and peace too…Vincent. After the pact we made, never to get in each others way, or to ask of personal information, I will break it. For a good reason too, I'd like to know if I really am the villain in this world, and if so…does that mean I really should have died ten months and two years ago, or if I survived for a reason. Did I survive to make sure Faye does, or is it even something more?
-A glorious hallelujah-
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AN: Sorry about that…I had a uploading problem….hehehehehee GOMEN!
if Shin has an actual last name…too bad I like this one too much. Pronounced (Tash-jin)
Heehee another dream sequence, those things are so much fun to write…
Anyway….this is the first mixed POV chapter…I thought it turned out kinda cool…A big cliffie in the Shin POV and a fluffy moment in the Vicious POV, I just wanted to add fluff and Andy, Andy is hilarious and who could leave out Andy?! I couldn't… if the Vicious POV convo was a little hard to follow, review and tell me or Email me. I am a little tired and I couldn't really think straight.
Anyway R2Rs hands out marshmallow peeps I have too many of these at my house...don't worry you can eat them the preservatives keep them fresh till the apocalypse.
Special awards go to repeat reviewers ! Pimpin Satan, Lets play with matches, !
hands out Vicious action figure...press his tummy with your finger he'll slash you with his authentic miniature katana before chuckling menacingly ones up that stupid dough boy
Kaelin77 aw im so glad you look forward to reading my fic, I feel all warm inside and its not the ramen! XD
lets play with matches formerly refered to as insomni-maniac yeah...she couldn't be wearing that cheap hooker outfit anymore and I love the dog too, it gets suffocated then it just pops right back up and bites you in the face...hehehehe im also glad you liked the joke of the dish soap :)
yes, that is also a problem I have, is too much decribing of a random room in a apartment or a outside table...they make me fall asleep thats why I don't do it that much. And yes...you are a freak...but who said that there is anything wrong with that? XD im foolin
Azly-chan first of all, thanx for reviewing my poem, I never got a email notification, but I randomly was looking through my stuf and figured out that you did, thanx bunches! I would talk to you but im not online oh so much... anyway thanx for your reviews they cheer me up nicely!
Pimpin satan hehehe I got a kick out of that shower scene...I couldnt restrain myself from that, anyway I hope you liked this latest chapter...and im glad someone liked the strange dream sequences and can faye ever keep her mouth shut?
Mae yes it will be the vincent from the CB movie...unfortunately, I have actually only seen the trailer cause it didnt come to theaters where I live and my preoccupied lifestyle has me in circles so I cant buy it yet, so if vincents character is a little off...sorry, ill be winging it.
Insane dragoness I love parties...im glad you are throwing one for me
Kajouka yes..once you think I am getting predictable BOOM here comes Shin! Hahahahaa I am full of mystery.....hears crickets chirp....ok self esteem plummeted yes I do need to work on grammar, im just a little lazy....thanx for reviewing!
Kate Spiegel yeah thanx, I have always liked the Vicious faye pairings cause I always feel that vicious got shafted and should have received more air time...though who cant love Spike?
Moonwhisper I feel honored to receive a review from you, I loved your fic...the earth one...I cant think of the name right now...too many chocolates...cant think straight
OmegaNeko heheehe yes there is a sequel I would not leave you hanging XP
Cbdbz247 hahahahahaha I am sorry I kept you waiting hands him a crown I would hate to leave thy highness waiting for such a sequel XD XD...sorry its just fun playin around.
If I missed your review, email me and rant...sorry if I did
Have a good night and remember....don't drink while operating a circular saw...stupid neighbors...
your in emotional shambles ff buddy L.O.H