Ta-da! Its my first ever Cowboy Bebop fic. ::silence:: aww c'mon now I'm not that bad. ::more silence:: grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr hey Ed am I that bad?

::Ed:: chaos bad chaos bad, it's the worst we ever had!

::looks at Ed evilly:: your gonna regret that missy

::Ed::missy kissy wissy poo!

::smacks forehead:: I have my work cut out for me. Oh and I don't own Cowboy Bebop!

An Eye For an Eye

Chapter One

"How y'all doin'? Welcome do Bigshot for the Bounty hunters," the vid screen crackles on. "Today we have a special bounty for all you bounty hunters out there. This bounty recently escaped from Ling-Ling prison and is worth a whopping 300 million woolongs!

"Wow, that's a lot of money for just one guy."

"Well this guy's name is Nikolai Asimov, former crime boss of the Red Dragon Syndicate. He was incarcerated for-"

"Murder, money embezzlement, and under age prostitution among other things," Spike said, seeming a little annoyed. Getting up off the couch, Spike turned off the vid screen. Fey threw the remote at him which he caught and yelled, "HEY! I was watching that!" Tossing her back the remote, he shot her a look that said, "don't even think about it."and skulked away. 'What's his problem?' she thought as she went to get Ed to help her track down the big bounty. Her, Ed and Jet sat around Ed's computer trying to find a lead when Spike walked back in.

"This guy's mine. Trust me you'll never find him if you don't know him. He watches his ass."

"Hey Spike, at least give us a hint," Jet said trying to reason with him.

"No, this is something I have to deal with alone. I owe that bastard an eye." An eye that only sees the past.

Releasing the air lock, Swordfish took of smoothly and flew through space towards Mars. Cutting through the silence of space, Spike raced toward his destination. His intercom crackled on and Jet's angry voice was barely audible.

"SPIKE!! GET..........I MEAN........YOU'LL NEVER BE ALOUD........SPIKE!!!" He reached over and turned off the intercom. Sighing he once again focused on his objective; finding Nikolai and paying him back.

Landing on the outskirts of the considerably shady side of town, Spike chose his path. Lots of alleys, dingy streets and condemned buildings with garbage strewn everywhere. It reeked of danger and death, the stench of cheap booze and drugs hung in the air. Even though it was still daylight, darkness loomed over this part of the city. Heading over towards a particular rundown building, Spike hunched his shoulders to keep the cold off the back of his neck. A pink neon sign read, "The Bulldog" with the letters e, u, and d out of commission. The rest of the letters blinked like a candle about to go out. Fogged over and boarded up windows greeted Spike as he reached for the handle on a heavy rusted steel door.

Dim lighting created long overcast shadows across the floor of the bar. A few scattered tables with candles were on the far side of the room. To his immediate right was the bar and on the far end of the bar sat a man. He was stocky and hunched over a half finished mug, a long, jagged scar trailed from the left side of his forehead, in-between his eyes and swept across his right cheek. Shifting his gaze warily toward the door, his eyes grew wide in horror for a fleeting second, as if he had seen a ghost. Though he did not act like he fully acknowledged Spike's presence, he watched him out of the corner of his eye.

Spike took a seat on the other end of the bar, using its mirror behind the shelves to his advantage. "That's him. I remember when I gave him that scar, after he took out my eye.' Ordering a drink, he began to reminisce about his days in the syndicate.

"SPIKE!! DO YOU HEAR ME?! GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE RIGHT NOW!!!! I MEAN IT SPIKE! YOU'LL NEVER BE ALLOWED BACK ON THE BEBOP! SPIKE!!!!!" (click) "huh? What happened ?" Jet asked scratching his sparse head.

"He turned it off you idiot," Faye answered in an I-told-you-so tone, sauntering off toward her room.

"OH who asked you?" Jet argued back heading off to repair Hammerhead.

"Goddamnit Nikolai!"

"Heh! You run pretty fast for a dead man, Spike, though still not fast enough," Nikolai taunted. He was a good distance away from Spike to begin with. He had given Spike the slip when an explosion took his concentration away from his bounty, it took awhile for Spike to notice he was gone. By the time he had noticed, Nikolai had a very big lead , which was getting smaller by the minute. 'Not to worry, we're almost there anyway' he thought, bounding around the corner and almost into an overturned trash can. Coming upon the edge of the slums, he burst across inot the better side of town. Though it was past noon, the streets and buildings seemed to shine with brilliance compared to the dingy slums. The buildings captured the suns rays on their windows and illuminated the streets below as Nikolai ran past. 'I could see her living here.'

Spike was now very pissed off. Either Nikolai knew where he was going, or was leading him on a wild goose chase. Figuring it was the former when Nikolai suddenly bounded around a corner, Spike put all his senses on high alert. 'Yup I could definitely see Katia living here.' Nikolai counted off the street numbers as he continued down a row of generously sized apartment complexes. Spike was hot on his heels as Nikolai finally spotted the ground floor studio apartment. The giant front window shattered as he jumped through the glass. Spike was beginning to notice the shadows that crept around on the roofs of the surrounding buildings and they didn't seem too friendly.

"What the hell!?" Katia, who had been in the back studio painting, heard the window shatter and walked into the front room to investigate. As she was grabbed from behind, a gun put to her head fear that she had not known in over 5 years, came rushing back to her like the fury of God. She recognized the calloused hands that bound her and the smell of cheap whiskey on his breath. She knew the man behind he, the man who had nearly destroyed her life, one who was supposed to be in prison. Anyone should be in prison for what he did, but he did it to his own flesh and blood, his daughter.

"Hello, Katia," he whispered in her ear, the hot stink of his breath making her cringe inwardly

"I told you, my name is Kate!"she said through gritted teeth. It was all she could manage from totally freaking out. She did not want to go through that nightmare again.

"That's not your Russian name, your birth name. Katia Yvonne Asimov."

Kate tried to squirm out of her father's vice-like grip, but to no avail. Outside the shattered window, Spike slowed to a halt after Nikolai went through. He began counting the shadows on the rooftops and it seemed he was far outnumbered. There were two on the roof, three on the one across the street, and four behind the apartment at least. Yep, it was a set up and he had walked right into it. The shadows began to close in on Spike and he knew he couldn't take them all, so he entered the apartment through the broken window frame, careful not to cut himself on any of the broken glass. Upon entering, Spike saw it had already turned into a hostage situation. The hostage herself looked familiar with her flaming red hair and vivid dark green eyes. Its not often you forget a face like hers. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't ugly, it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but it was one that just stuck with you. But for the life of him, he couldn't remember where he had seen her before. She seemed to vaguely recognize him as well, but that still didn't bring about any inkling of what her name was. She squinted at him, as if trying remember when her eyes went wide in fear. Spike didn't even have to turn around to know who was there.

"Hello Spike," Vicious oozed as walked in through the door. He had a very smug smirk on his face as he looked over at Kate, whose eyes were now burning with hatred. He stuck his hand in his pocket and Spike was about ready to bolt when he noticed the entourage that had followed Vicious in, and the many more who were outside the window. 'Oh this is just super!'

"You! You broke my father out of prison! You idiot, what the hell were you thinking Vicious?!" Kate snarled at him. Then it hit Spike like a brick wall, she was Kate Asimov, Nikolai's daughter who had been the prosecutions star witness against her father and was really the only thing the ISSP had been able to claim as evidence (since no one could shut her up anyway). If Vicious had broken Nikolai out of jail, there must some very large deal in the works and that did not bode well for the rest of the Mars populace.

Vicious strode over to Kate and wrenched her left arm forward by the wrist. She struggled but he had her in an unshakable grip as he shoved her sleeve up to her elbow joint. He reached back in his pocket and pulled out a small, black, electronic scanner and Kate began to squirm even more as she recognized it. You didn't have a crime boss for a father and not know when you were about to be marked. The scanner was placed to her skin and the smell of burning flesh accompanied her blood curdling screams. When all was said and done, a bar code was burned into her forearm and a tracking chip placed under the skin. As another surprise, Vicious slapped a handcuff onto her right hand and grabbed Spike's left hand and slapped the other cuff on him.

"Let the game's begin."

Spike: You gotta be shittin' me! I get to be handcuffed to a girl I barely know? Is this someone's idea of a sick joke?!?!

::::author is sitting at computer while Vicious whispers his "ideas" in her ear.::::

Spike: I knew it! Only someone as sick and twisted as you could come up with something so...so...wrong!

Chaos:::snickers::: well half of it was my idea but if you say so. And yeah I know kinda wrong, but in an entertaining sort of way right? Right? :::looks around and sees empty space::: well if anybody's out there, could you review just to save my sanity? Plz?