Children's Games: Part 6

Rated PG for rampant bad language and some rather explicit violence.

Summary: Five years after Spike's death, Faye and Jet find an old friend and new trouble, and the beginning of a new adventure.

Faye took the lead as they snuck into The Children's hideout. Ed was close behind her, with Alex right at her side. They hadn't been able to convince her to stay on the ship, but she had promised to stay out of the way.

Faye kicked in the door to the back room. Their arrival had clearly been noticed, as all the computer screens were lit up with a countdown. Ein was letting out a pitiful whine, trapped in a makeshift cage in the middle of the room. The hacker who had ratted out Alex and Ed was sitting on top of the cage to keep Ein trapped with a keyboard on his lap. He grinned at Faye, Alex, and Ed's entry.

"So good to see you again, Ed. We've been busy without you. If you deigned to speak to us once in a while, you might have seen this coming." He gestured to the countdown. "We're launching a full shut down of Earth's remaining satellites. They'll be totally blind to the meteors, and it will wipe them all out."

Faye narrowed her eyes. "Not if I take you out." She emphasized her point with the gun.

"Kill me if you want," he mocked. "The countdown's already started."

"No thanks," Faye replied. "I'd rather get the one million on your head."

"Ah, but there has to be an Earth government left in order for you to collect," the boy smiled back.

"What the hell do you want?" Alex was getting impatient.

"Ed. You are such a stuck-up bitch, you know that? I bet you don't even know my name, do you?" The brat with his finger on the doomsday button was pausing to rant in his madness.

Ed stepped forward. "Let Ein go. He has nothing to do with this."

The boy laughed. "It's Jacob, by the way. But you don't care. You don't even care that I'm going to render the planet defenseless. All you care about is this mutt." Jacob kicked the cage to get Ein to whine again.

Edward stepped fully into the light, to give Jacob full view of her bloodied form. "I said, let Ein go." Ed's voice turned dark, something no one had heard before, which made it all the more scary. She stepped even closer, and put her face an inch away from Jacob's. "Now."

"Fucking bitch." Jacob's hand reached out to slap Ed. In the blink of an eye, that hand was twisted at an unnatural angle, and a loud snap punctuated the room, followed by Jacob's screaming.

"Won't be doing any hacking with that hand for a while," Ed commented as she shoved Jacob off the cage. She glared around at the rest of the hackers, who were now shrinking against the walls. "Anyone else want to piss me off?"

She was met with ten head shakes.

"Then you wanna go ahead and stop your little virus? Or are you gonna make me do it? You know I'm better than all of you put together."

There was a deep powering down sound as all the computers were deactivated.

"Good." Ed knocked over the crate and let Ein out.

Faye nodded her approval. "Looks like you've been taking some pages from my book, as well."

Ed picked up Ein and rubbed his head. "Frankly, I get things done with a lot less property damage than you three. Yeesh."

Faye laughed out loud. "True on that one. Come on. I count eleven here, which brings the total to…31 million woolongs! Woohoo!"

Alex's eyes bugged out. "I didn't know there was that kind of money in bounty hunting."

"It disappears pretty fast," Faye explained.

"So what are you going to do with all that money?" Alex asked.

Faye got a sly grin on her face. "We've got some ideas…"

Jet sat down with Ed the next day to figure out where they were going next.

"Do you want to come back with us? I know it's not much, but you've always got a home here. And you've certainly grown up well. We know you can handle yourself in bad situations, and your hacking skills haven't gotten rusty. What do you say?" Jet looked into Ed's eyes.

Ed smiled. "Thanks, Jet. I know I can get back into bounty hunting, but I'm not sure if I want to do it with the Bebop. You two are a good team now, and you've had plenty of practice. I don't wanna get in the way."

Jet winked. "Besides. It looks like you've got a partner of your own there, now."

Ed laughed out loud. "Hey. Not like that. But, still, I kind of want to go into business for myself."

Jet nodded. "Fair enough. Then this belongs to you."

Ed's eyes bugged out as she looked at the credit chip. "25 million? That's way more than half!"

Jet laughed. "We've found ourselves another bounty on this rock. The 6 million will hold us out until we bag them. We figured it would be better invested in you. It's enough to get you started, at least."

Ed flung her arms around Jet's neck. "Thank you, thank you! I promise I'll make you proud."

Jet laughed. "Hey, and if you ever need a hand, or some advice, we're always here for you."

Ed smiled. "I know the Bebop will always be home."

Don't worry, guys, it's not over. Yup, you guessed it! This is the pilot for a series of stories involving Ed, Ein, and Alex's adventures as bounty hunters. I should have the first one uploaded pretty soon, so you won't have too long to wait. I hope you enjoyed my work, and if you liked this, you should like the rest of the series.