Disclaimer- I do not own Jet, Spike, Faye, Ed or Ein blah blah blah.

Claimer- I do own Korey, Tamochi, Shang and Jasmine. So there!

Watch Out For Cars

"Apocochi! Apocoooochi street, is where we are gooooing."

"Stop singing, Ed."

"Ok Spike-person, no problem."

Spike grunted at this response and lit yet another cigarette. He was going through them fast today.

In front of him, Ed walked as upright as a soldier, a soldier with her legs kicking up into the air with every step, that is. Frankly, Spike was curious to see if the kid could actually walk like that for two blocks. He knew she had a LOT of energy, but still , it was two freakin' blocks like that!

Actually, Spike didn't mind the walking at all, it was the singing that really got on his nerves. This little escapade was starting to turn into a more than he thought it would have originally been. He suddenly remembered why he hated hacker hunts, the well-meaning good Samaritan Spike had just crawled back into the tightly locked shell that it had dared to open, probably never to be seen.. for a good while again anyway.

He sighed, this was so boring! Where were his crazy egotistical, ammo packing, kick-ass, normal bad guys?! Why the hell was he doing this for the kid? If she was always so damn happy, then why did this bout of sadness result in something so drastic as to change his preferred choice of villains?

This was a load of crap. And it couldn't get any worse than that.

A great clap of thunder boomed over the two, while lost in his thoughts he hadn't noticed the looming clouds and the quickened pace of the people on the street who were trying to get indoors before the rain fell. With good reason he supposed, he had remembered Jet saying something about Ganymede rain being unusually heavier than the rain on other planets. How heavy could it be though? He had been in some pretty good storms himself, surely it wasn't much worse than that. It couldn't possibly be.

A bolt of lightning cracked the ground about 100 feet down the street from him and scared the hell out of Ed as well as himself.

"Holy Shit!" he yelled, nearly jumping out of his skin. Edward's wide eyes was all Spike needed to know she was expressing the same reaction.

"Ed, we need to get inside now!"

For once Ed had no comments on this, let alone arguments to it. But finding an inside was going to be hard, actually it was a severe problem, all the shops along the streets had CLOSED signs in the window because it was 5:15. And they only thing Spike could see open were taverns. Good for him, bad for Ed.

"Where to we go Spike-person?" asked Ed, kind of cowering from the last shock of lightning that rocked the street. Spike turned his mismatched brown eyes to Ed's amber ones, ready to tell her he had no clue. But his words stopped at the look of horror on Ed's face.

"What is it?" he asked curiously.

"Waterfall on land." was all Ed muttered, looking behind him.

Spike turned to look down the street and gasped, what he saw was amazing. There was basically a wall of water rolling toward them, falling from the sky, he heard the loud noise of rolling drops as the rain hit the street and spread out.

Jet wasn't kidding about the Ganymede rain.

"Run Ed!"

"Where?" Asked Ed her voiced confused.

"There's a Tavern up ahead about a block and a half, I can see the neon lights, it says "Parsky's", just run for it."

Edward took off running (on two feet this time) and Spike followed close behind. He had to pump his long legs as hard as possible just to keep up with the eccentric child. He could hear the storm moving up fast behind them, he also had the thought stuck in his head about how ridiculous it was to run from some stupid rain.

They got to the end of the first block in about 73 seconds, and neither even considered pressing the crosswalk button that would safely stop any cars coming down the street they were running into.

That was a bad idea.

As Ed was nearing toward the curb, her knees bent and she prepared to vault into the street ahead. She didn't hear the squealing tires over the roar of the storm and only Spike saw the flash of black metal pummeling toward his comrade.

"Ed! Look out!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, but she had reached the middle of the crossing and wasn't able to hear. The car seemed to speed up when it saw the girl in the road, and so did Spike Spiegel.

Reaching an instant state of alertness that his life's happenings had so expertly prepared him for, Spike rushed toward Ed and scooped her up and he leapt to the other side of the street. She was so skinny and light that it wasn't hard to keep the same speed he previously had as he saved her.

All of this happened in an instant, Spike had moved like water, not even thinking about what he needed to do or about the result of doing it, in his true fashion.

The black car hit the brakes so hard that the back end swerved around, placing the it's nose in the opposite direction that it had been going. Spike stood on the sidewalk with Ed in his arms, watching the driver curiously. But the windows were tinted and no one stepped out, or even raised any harsh words.

"What is Spike-person doing?" asked Ed calmly, looking up at him from her seat in his arms.

Spike's mismatched brown eyes met Ed's amber ones,.

"I was saving your ass, kid." he replied flatly.

"Oh, ok Spike-person. Are you done now?"

"Yeah," said Spike, a bit surprised at how calm Edward was being. He gently laid her on the sidewalk. After he stood back up, he heard the click of a car door opening. He spun around, ready to really let fly some words about watching out for kids (very un-like to Spike, but for the case of Edward ) when she stepped out of the car.

The first thing he saw was a very shapely female leg with black leather knee-high boots on, step onto the ground, then a very tall, thin and well endowed woman stood up. She had long dark hair that fell to her waist in an elegant and rich braid, bright blue eyes, and darkly tanned skin. By looking at her outfit, Spike guessed she had just about as much modesty as Faye Valentine. It consisted of a shortly cut red halter top, a black leather mini skirt, and black gloves on her long elegant fingers that slip to her forearms.

There was also a belt of large gold rings hanging casually on her waist.

After she stepped out of her car, she opened a red umbrella and held it over her head with accurate enough timing to be supposed. The rain started to fall, first a light sprinkle, and then turning into a quickly accelerated downpour. She smiled sweetly at Ed and Spike who were looking at her with a somewhat grumpy contempt. Their Spiky red and green hair was now utterly drenched, as well as clinging annoyingly to the sides of their frowning faces. Though raising an eyebrow at this, the woman did not seem all that sympathetic.

"That was quite a trick, handsome," she said ,walking over to stand in front of Spike and stare at him with her bright blue eyes. Her voice was smooth and seductive, and the green-haired man's heart fluttered for a brief moment at the sound of it.

"What are you talking about?" Spike asked unkindly, glaring at the woman as the rain poured down his face and slid over his nose and past his eyes and collected at the corner of his mouth.

The woman smiled at this. "I was talking about your speed. You are incredibly fast and obviously strong. It's a shame that I've never seen you around here before."

"Think of me as a tourist with extremely bad luck," Spike answered flatly.

"Well Mr. Tourist, if you ever happen to need a job, I want you to contact me, my supervisor will be most pleased in meeting you and having you join our team."

"And just who is this supervisor?" asked Spike, more nicely than the first time, and even with a tiny sparkle in his eye.

"Are you interested in the position?" asked the woman with pursed lips.

"Not at the moment, but maybe later." Spike said as smoothly as possible, considering how hard the rain was coming down. Somehow, just talking to this woman made getting out of the lightning seem unimportant. And he didn't care that he was wet, or that he was on Ganymede for a reason. And who even cared if she almost run over Ed? The kid was sturdy, she could take getting hit by a car. None of that seemed to matter at all.

"Call me, when you're really interested, then." said the woman with another one of her hypnotizing smiles, "This is one of those things that you can't turn back from." She held out a business card, when Spike went to take it, she withdrew it quickly and brought it to her lips. Looking up at Spike with innocence, she kissed the edge, leaving lip marks from her dark red lipstick.

"Okay," Spike muttered, his tongue kind of slurring his words, he stupidly took the card and shoved it into his vest pocket. His BEST vest pocket, where only his cigarettes ever had the privilege of going.

Ed stared up at this scene with curious fascination. What was wrong with Spike-person? Why was he acting so goofy and loopy? It was strange to see anyone mirror her actions.

"Spikey!" lopped Edward, "Spikey-man, we have to find Tamochi, come on, Spikey, we need to go! What about Koooorey? And now it's cold, we need to go!"

The woman's eyes narrowed dangerously at this comment, and Spike didn't see it ,since he had turned his head toward Edward to scold her for her outburst. But Ed did see it. And the look of anger and hatred had completely traded itself for a now false smile when he had turned back around to face the girl again.

"Spike-man, did you-" Ed started.

"Be quiet Ed, you've said enough as it is," Spike interrupted with a snap.

"If you don't mind me asking," started the woman unperturbed, "May I have your name?"

Spike smiled mischievously, "Only if I can have yours."

"Oh I see how you're going to be," the woman sniffed curtly, "It's just as well I suppose. My name is Jasmine Velincio."

"And my name is Spike Spiegel," said Spike, humorously taking Jasmine's hand and kissing it.

"My, we are charming aren't we? Well Mr. Spiegel, I will be leaving you now, as I am not fond of wet weather. It was a pleasure."

"Yes it was," answered Spike.

Jasmine turned and walked casually back to her vehicle and slid into the driver's seat. She nodded at Spike before closing the door and starting her car. She turned the car sharply before peeling out down the street and burning rubber down the road, just as oblivious to the stop signs and crosswalks as before. Spike stood in the rain and watched her go, then turned to Edward.

"Didn't we tell you not to talk? You could have gave away something."

"That flower-lady doesn't like Spike and Edward," Ed said lightly.

"That's funny," said Spike with a laugh, " I thought she liked me very well"

"She's bad." stated Ed stubbornly.

"What is with the 'he's bad, she's bad' bit anyway? Just because they act normal doesn't make them bad." pointed out Spike. " Forget it. I'm cold, wet and need a drink." Spike ended.

Ed just sighed, and the two who had been running with everything they had before, succumbed to being wet as they slowly walked in the rain, thunder and lightning, toward Parsky's tavern.

The blue-haired boy stared up at the horrific man glaring down at him. He was in shock at the fact he had been so close to escaping, but instead, let himself get caught by something so stupid.

"You didn't answer my question, you little whelp," Shang growled.

"I didn't think you had the brainpower to handle the response if I gave you one," retorted Korey with a snarl. He knew Shang couldn't do anything serious to him without getting into trouble with Tamochi. At least he was safe on the that level, and ironically by the man he felt endangered by.

At least, he hoped he was.

Shang seemed to contemplate this response to the best of his ability (and Korey guessed that wasn't much) he then gave a look of descision and heavily reached for Korey's throat.

The boy tried to move away but wasn't quick enough as the brute of a man roughly grabbed a handful of his shirt front and ripped his small body upward.

"Do you think you're cute, my little friend? I sure don't ."

"Well I didn't expect you to," said Korey nervously.

Shang swung the arm holding Korey over and slammed the boy into the wall, knocking a black and whte clock of fit's hook as he did so. It shattered when it hit the ground. Korey winced audibly at the pain now moving down his spine.

"I was told to give you a demonstration," breathed Shang harshly.

"No need to, I believe you as it is," added Korey hastily.

"You still don't know when to shut your mouth do you?" laughed Shang. "It's a real shame that I'm going to enjoy this so much."

Korey began kicking his legs, trying to get down from the wall. His skinny arms were pulling at Shangs fingers in an attempt to release his grip. The shirt was tightened around his throat and nearly strangling him. He strained everything he had to fight against the man, but it only exhausted his body more, and he was no further than when he had started.

"Oh, do you want down, sweet heart?" Shang asked mockingly. "Well by all means, let me help you down."

Korey found himself thrown to the hard floor in the next instant. He was already winded, and his head was throbbing deeply, but then a new pain dug into his side as Shang kicked him, he rolled once and tried to get up, but a heavy boot then rested on his chest, forcing him down.

"You know what, my little pet? I've been thinking of a solution to our problems with you. Tamochi only really needs your fingers and your head. So how 'bouts I break them skinny legs? It ain't like you's needs 'em or anyting, am I right? Hows 'bouts I just snap 'em both into little pieces?"

Korey's eyes widened at te thought and possibility of this and he started squirming under the mans foot in an atempt to get out.

'Oh," Shang crooned, "Don't tell me you's don't likes the idea. It's a real shame kid, It's a real damn shame!" He lifted his foot quickly and was almost ready to drop it down hard on Korey's chest when the door swung open behind him.

"Shang enough," a voice firmly ordered.

The big man's face drooped into a frown when he saw who was speaking. He stepped away from the child on the ground and gave a slight bow.

"What is it Ms. Velincio?" he asked.

A/n: Was that a better cliff-hanger? I'm just curiouse. I mean, how many people saw that coming? (probably a lot.) That is all for now. I don't have time to do responses right now. So I just want to Thank Sanima, Kelli, Crazyhanyoued, and GothicKnight for your reveiws. The next chapter should be up relatively faster than this one. At least, I hope.