Episode 2: Earth girls are easy…

Oz was clicking away on the computer. He was doing research, trying to find the next bundle of cash on two feet. It was the best way to find anything period, and the best way to find a bounty. These days, there was always someone out there with a bounty on their head. How it got there varied, sometimes it was set by the authorities, other times by private investigators, or even people who just had a grudge against someone. Nowadays it's impossible for police to monitor everything, it's a big galaxy. A lot of it is largely un-policed, left to local law or private security forces. It made it easy for anyone to pick up and start bounty hunting. Whether or not they could make a good living off of it was something that was an entirely different question. There most certainly was money to be made, but some bounties were only a few hundred, and when you own your own ship, there's no way that's enough. Food, repairs, fuel, weapons(especially caster shells) can really run up the bill, if you don't make the catch, you don't eat, you don't fly. That was the scenario Oz was trying to avoid. The fridge was empty, and they only had a few packages of instant noodles left. Fuel was half-way empty, so it could wait, but their stomachs couldn't. Oz's stomach growled, but he decided to try and hold off on eating: save the noodles for later. Searching the police bulletin he found something worth looking into.

"Hmmm" Oz had a slight grin on his face has he looked at the screen. Ryoko had been lying around all day and was wearing a shirt that was cut off at the mid-riff and some pajama short-shorts. She noticed Oz had found something so she got up to investigate.

"What you got?"

"Our next bounty." Oz said confidently.

"So who is this guy?" Ryko looked at the skinny looking blond man on the screen, by the name of David Frandsen. She also took quick notice of the reward: $5 million. "He's kinda cute."

"Yeah and he's kinda a conman too." A slight pang of jealousy ran through Oz, even though she was kidding, that didn't mean that he wasn't bothered by it. There was also the fact of his charges: womanizer wanted for fraud.

"Now there's no need to get jealous." Ryoko had a smug smile on her face as she rapped her arms around Oz.

"Anyways," getting back to business, "We need to find out where went to before we can catch him, it says here he was last seen on Mars."

"Well he could be anywhere by now."

"True, but I think I might have an idea of where he is." Oz winked at Ryoko as he said this.

"Where?" Ryoko was surprised at his confidence, and she wanted to know what he was hiding.

"School." He said matter-of-factly.

"What?" It wasn't the answer she was expecting and it was one that certainly needed explaining. She gave an interrogating look towards Oz.

"Well where better for a young rich guy to hide than in a big rich college? He's probably under a new name. All we have to do is find out who he is and see if there were any recent transfers to any colleges on Mars, simple." He sounded very optimistic about the whole thing. As he began the search he encountered his first hurdle, "5,000 transfers!"

Ryoko leaned in towards Oz, "Simple huh?"

"Shut up."

"hmmm" Ryoko sat back to see what Oz would do next. He was pretty entertaining when he was frustrated, his grunts and expressions were something Ryoko enjoyed seeing.

Oz spent a few more minutes searching and attempting to narrow his search, slowly but surely he narrowed it down. But he ran across frustrations here and there. It turns out that using such as "rich" in his search still left him with over 500 people. He thought again to try to focus on transfers only from Earth, since David was from Earth. That managed to narrow the search to 100 people, which was still a large margin. He then thought it might help to find out some of the most expensive schools on Mars then trying to find the transfers there. With that he finally managed to get the number down to 22. "Hmmm." Oz decided that was about as good as it was going to get, so he decided to try for matches by looking at the records of each person. "Lets see," he said to himself, then typed a few more things, "Ah Ha." After deciding to look for blond males he managed to get a grand total of five people. "This could be promising." Oz began looking into their files and searching their passport information. "If I run a search by trying to find a visual match…" his voice trailed off and began typing again. "Gotcha!" Oz shouted in triumph, looking at the flashing screen with the matches.

"What's up?" Ryoko had given up on using Oz as entertainment.

"I found him" Oz gave a smile.

"You did!"

"Yeah, he's goin' under the name James Maxwell." Oz sat back and looked at Ryoko, "Looks like we're goin' back to school."

"Huh?" Ryoko wasn't sure what he meant by that, but she had a feeling she'd find out soon.

"I'm setting a course for Mars, it's time to make some dinero." Oz punched in the numbers and the either drive began powering up for the jump.

Later…

Oz and Ryoko stood at the mouth of Johnson-Smith University, one of the most prestigious universities on Mars, in the Solar System even. They were at a rich private school, so they both made sure to look the part. Oz had on a suit and tie. He managed to find a jacket that had the universities crest on it at the campus lost and found. He figured it was a long shot, but worth a try, and it paid off. He managed to pull off the student look, and being that the campus was so big, he wasn't worried about Ryoko and himself being found out. After all, what's two more students? Ryoko was once again turning heads. She fulfilled one of man's most treasured fantasies, the infamous school girl look. Her black skirt went nicely with her navy blue jacket and partially unbuttoned white shirt. To finish the look she had tied back her hair into a pony tail and put on glasses.

"Every time I see you in that outfit I just wanna corrupt you in the worst way." Oz gave a sly smile as he said that, giving Ryoko the look over.

"I hate this," Ryoko said, blushing a little and putting her head down in half-anger, half-flattery; but she would never admit to that. This kind of wardrobe wasn't typical for Ryoko, it just wasn't her style, but then again, she couldn't say she hated it.

Some yards away a young blond man caught eye of Ryoko. "Hmmm," he smiled as he saw her, especially with that outfit. Nice, he thought to himself. "Looks like I should introduce myself." And he began to walk over.

"There he is," Ryoko whispered to Oz as she noticed him walking towards her.

"We're not gonna get him right now, we gotta make sure that it's really him. Let him get comfy." Oz looked off in the distance as if he was scoping out the campus. Just then David walked up to them and introduced himself to Ryoko.

"Hey there, you must be new to campus." He had a cunning smile as he extended his hand out to her.

"Umm, yeah." Forgetting for a second to play the role of transfer college student, Ryoko recovered herself and extended her hand as well. As she did that David took it in his own and kissed it. Ryoko found herself a little impressed by that, no one had ever done that, and she found herself enjoying it a little.

"So can I take you out to dinner tonight?" David inquired, " I know this great place, and maybe afterwards I can give a tour of campus, get you better acquainted with it."

"Wow you work fast don't you?"

"Of course, Ms…?" David said matter-of-factly.

"Ryoko." Who does this guy think he is? Ryoko thought. No wonder so many women fell for him, he certainly has a kind of charm to him in a idiot-gimme-a-break kinda way. And this has gotta be getting Oz a little agitated.

Man this guy needs to be slapped! Oz thought, working to hold back his jealousy. He's hitting on my woman! What the hell! And his lines are stupid and cliché.

"Ahem" Oz cleared his throat to get himself noticed.

"Oh sorry, didn't see you there." David said.

"Right." Oz simply stood there waiting for David to extend his hand out for a handshake.

"I think I kinda forgot to introduce myself to you and the lovely Ryoko here, I'm James Maxwell."

"Oz Sanchez" Oz thought a slight variation in name would be a good idea, he was becoming more well known here and there for his exploits, so was Ryoko, but it seemed that their fame hadn't made it to this area, seeing as he didn't take notice of either of their names. As he was thinking about that he made it a point to give David a nice firm handshake.

"Uhhh, nice grip." David feigned feeling no pain, but didn't hide it too well.

"Thanks" Oz had grin on his face.

"jeez," Ryoko mumbled trying to ignore the needless feat of strength.

"Well I'll see you at 7 tonight, at Danson's okay Ryoko?"

"Sure."

"Good." With that David turned and walked off.

Once he was out of earshot Oz looked over to Ryoko, "aren't you getting him a little too comfy Ryoko?"

"Hey I'm just doing like you said to do." Ryoko put her hands up in innocence as she said this, "You don't have to get jealous I've already told you that."

"What's to be jealous about?" Oz sounded insulted at the idea of such a thing. "He's a conman, and I know I could kick his ass without breaking a sweat."

Ryoko looked at him and winked. "Relax Oz, Ryoko won't treat you wrong, lets get this loser and get the hell outta here."

"You're right." Oz gave a smile to that, and the thought of a $5 million bounty on their hands. "Well I guess we should get ready fro your date."

7:00pm, Danson's….

Ryoko stood at the doorway wearing a dark velvet green dress. There was a cut slip on each side that went up to her thighs. Her belly was exposed by a cut out portion of the dress. She wore a choker necklace with a jade medallion on it. She caught sight of David and began heading for his table.

"Hi there." She said as she sat down.

David smiled at her as he admired the dress she was wearing, or rather, lack thereof. "I was almost worried you wouldn't show."

"Of course I'd show DAVID, you're the $5 million man." Ryoko looked into his eyes and saw his astonishment when he realized she addressed him by his real name.

"How did you… are you a…boun…!"David was thrown completely off guard by the whole thing.

"Yup." Ryoko answered just before she took a sip of the champagne he had ordered. With that David jumped out of his chair and ran as fast as he could. Ryoko watched him and then took another sip of her champagne, "run all you want." She said quietly, and took another sip.

David ran for the exit when he noticed a man in a blue and black jacket leaning against the wall right next to the door. He also noticed he had a caster strapped to each leg, and a belt full of shells for them. The man looked at him with a sly smirk on his face, "Where do you think you're going?" He pushed off the wall and stood in front of the doorway ready for action.

"Y…You too!" David remembered him from earlier in the day. It was Oz.

"Duh." Oz had nothing more to say to that question.

"Well you're not takin me without a fight!" David put up his fists in an attempt to look intimidating.

"Suit yourself." With that Oz gave David one quick right to the jaw. "You gotta learn to dodge guy." He took another swing, hit. Uppercut. Jab. Right. Left. Head, body, head. CRACK! BAM! POW! "You know your no good unless you can dodge!" Oz gave him on last punch to the face to take him down. Ryoko walked up behind him up to David. She held out her hand and an energy blade materialized in it(one of Ryokos many talents), she clenched it and pointed it at David's face.

"Ughhh, huh?" David looked at the beam sword pointed at him and simply put his head back down.

"NO trouble now okay David?" Oz said. "By the way Ryoko, that dress is very sexy."

"Shut up." Ryoko blushed again, this time from flattery, but she would never admit that.

whatcha gonna do now buddy?...

To be continued… H)

'L\