It's been a while, but after a brush with writer's block, my brain is once again flowing with ideas. Believe it or not, but I had no idea what to do with this chapter until about halfway through the day. Then I thought 'hey, what if the crew caught a guy who stole jewels and he happened to have some on him?' and the ideas just suddenly started flowing. And so with that out of the way…
-Kouji Tamino
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Cowboy Bebop: The Second Session
"Has our little fishy arrived yet?" Edward asked, speaking into a walkie-talkie.
"Not yet…" Dex said quietly. He was standing right outside of a convenience store, shivering. "Are you sure he's gonna be here?" He asked, staring at his watch. "It's almost 1:00 a.m.!" The guy they were looking for was a jewel thief who has never been caught. He had stolen many different types of jewels and was currently taking residence on Venus.
Ed slowly grinned. "Positive. My source said that at every night at 1:00 a.m., like clockwork, Frank comes to this convenient store, buys a half gallon carton of milk, and drinks it right there in the store."
"Weird…" Dex shook his head. He suddenly saw a car park in the corner of his eye. Out of the car came a tall and slightly muscular man in a blue polo shirt, dark red pants, and black sneakers. He had long black hair and dark brown eyes. "There he is!" Walking over to the man in a casual manner, he waved. "Hi, there. Can I talk to you?" Unfortunately, it seemed that the man was onto him. Frank burst into a run in the opposite direction of the store, forcing Dex to give chase. "Damn it! Ed, he's trying to escape! Stop him, now!"
"Fine, fine…" The woman replied in a bored tone, starting up the Tomato II. "Never send a man to do a woman's job, as Faye-Faye used to say…" Her eyes suddenly widened as memories of her last encounter with Faye quickly returned. She put a hand on her chest, shaking with shock. "Faye-Faye… Why?"
"Ed!" Dex shouted through her walkie-talkie. "What the hell are you doing? GET MOVING!"
This quickly snapped her out of her trance. Grabbing the controls, she quickly apologized and hit the gas. She sped over to the convenience store, stopping dangerously close to Frank for comfort. The bounty head quickly fainted from the shock of almost getting run over. Edward opened up the cockpit and stared at her unconscious meal ticket. Giving a thumb up to her arriving partner, she smiled. "Easy as pie!"
"God!" Dex screamed staring at the scene with his hands on his head. "I'm glad you didn't kill him this time, but be more careful!"
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Session 4: In the Sky with Diamonds
And a few hours later, everyone was on the Bebop. The duo had confiscated a case of jewels that Frank had recently stolen and was sitting in the living room with Jet, staring at the gray box. Their bounty head was there as well, still knocked out and handcuffed to a sturdy pipe. The former ISSP officer rubbed his chin, glaring. "I just want to get one thing straight. Don't take anything from the box, don't peek inside to see its contents, don't touch it… Hell, I don't even want you to breath on it."
"That was four things…" Dex replied in a bored tone, picking the wax out of his ear and lying on the sofa lazily with his legs over one of the arms.
"Shut up." Jet snapped, annoyed by the younger man's sarcasm. "You know what I meant. This is precious cargo, understand? If we lose even one of these babies, we lose a big chunk of the reward money. Got it?"
"Aye aye, sir!" Ed shouted with a grin, hanging upside down from the top of the couch.
"How come she doesn't get berated for being sarcastic?" Dex asked, in an almost angry tone.
"Because she's always like that." Jet replied simply. "Besides, it's cute."
"Nya haaa!" Ed taunted, sticking her tongue out. Sliding down the couch, she landed on her hands and walked off.
"Come on, Jet…" Dex continued, raising his eyebrows pleadingly at the ex-cop. "Can't we at least just take little look see at what's in that thing?"
"NO." Jet said in a stern voice, standing up. "DO NOT touch that box! I'm going out for a bit. Ed!", he shouted, "If he touches it, you have my permission to bite him!"
"WHAT?" Dex screamed, as if he had just been given the death sentence.
"Yay!" Edward exclaimed from her bedroom.
"I can't believe this…" Dex muttered, his head in his hands as Jet left. "He's treating me like a kid…"
"That's cuz you act like a kid!" Ed replied, slithering up next to him like a snake.
"That's a fine thing for you to say…" Dex said in an annoyed tone. "You act more like a kid than me…"
"Ah ah ah!" Ed waved her finger, shaking her head. "Who's the child? The one that isn't afraid to live differently from the rest of society, or the one who whines like a little baby all the time?"
Dex rolled his eyes as Ed walked out again. "Whatever…"
"Psst, hey…" Frank whispered, finally awakening. He managed to catch Jet's leaving words and the short conversation between Ed and Dex "Don't listen to those losers… Go ahead, take a little peek. You're a responsible adult, right? You're not going to go and lose something as precious as those jewels, are you?"
"N-no, of course I won't!" Dex replied, agreeing but not letting himself be fooled by the criminal. "But it's not like I really wanted to look at those dumb jewels anyway." He yawned, digging in his ear. "I just wish that Jet would stop pushing me around so much. I mean, yeah, I appreciate him taking me in and fixing up my ship but…" pounding his fist on the table, he growled. "Damn it, this is their fault, too! If only they had kept their noses out of my bounty hunt, I'd still have my perfect record! Since then, there have been nothing but failures!"
"Yeah!" Frank shouted in agreement. "If anything, you're entitled to some of those jewels!"
"You're right!" the bounty hunter shouted, letting it get to his head. Reaching over to the case, he snapped it open and just barely lifted the lid when Edward suddenly pounced him, biting down on his ear. "Ooww!" he screamed, struggling to roll over so he could regain control. "Damn it Ed, let go!"
"No way!" she growled in a slightly muffled voice. "You heard Jet person! No opening the box! Bad Dex! Bad boy!"
Dex growled angrily, practically yanking her off of his ear, turning them around, and slamming her on the ground. "Stop that, damn it! Do you have any idea how that hur--" He gasped as he realized that Ed was shivering, crying softly to herself while tears ran down her face, and even hiccupping. His expression softened as she stared up at him fearfully with wide, fearful eyes. "Ed, I…"
"G-get the hell away from me…" she whimpered pitifully, traumatized from the recent events and afraid that another one of her friends had turned on her. Grabbing his arms, she roughly pushed him away, quickly standing up and running to her room. She gasped as Dex grabbed her by the arm. "Let me go, you bastard! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" she shouted, pulling herself from his grasp and socking him right in the face. She gasped again, looking away. "I'm sorry, Dex-person… You probably hate me even more than you did before."
"Ed…" Dex began, staring at her sadly. "I don't hate you."
"Yes you do!" she screamed.
"No I don't!" he shouted back.
"Wow, this is better than the movies!" Frank replied, snickering.
"You stay out of this!" the two young bounty hunters snapped at him. They were both currently not in the mood for any crap from anyone at the moment.
"Oh, crap!" Dex shouted, suddenly pointing at the floor. In all the commotion, they had knocked the now opened case of jewels to the ground, scattering the precious stones all over the floor. "Oh god, Jet's gonna kill us…" Looking to the woman, he got on his knees and stared at her pleadingly. "Please! Help me…"
"That's pathetic." Frank teased. "Begging a woman for help." His eyes widened as a gun was put into his mouth. 'Was this girl insane?', he was thinking to himself.
"You can just be quiet, Franky-Frank." Edward replied slyly, pressing the gun into his mouth further. "Criminals should be seen and not heard." Frankly, pun not intended, she was sick and tired of his quips and attempts at manipulation. Maybe scaring him straight would shut him up, at least for a few minutes.
"E-Ed!" Dex shouted, waving his arms. "Wh-what the hell are you DOING?" He quickly grabbed her arms and pulled the gun out of his mouth. "Are you TRYING to blow the bounty away?"
Ed grabbed his collar and pulled him closer to her, whispering into his ear. "It's okay, Dex-person…" She giggled, smiling mischievously. "The gun's not even loaded and the safety's on. He was never in any danger." Winking, she patted him on the back, still whispering. "Edward's not an idiot, you know…"
"Sometimes I wonder…" Dex muttered to himself. That comment earned him a whack on the head. "Ow! Now enough playing around, are you gonna help me or not?"
"Yesh!" she replied, putting the gun away.
As they picked up the precious stones, a rather large red ruby caught Edward's eye. It's lush shade of red and its shininess attracted the woman to it. Unable to take her eyes off of the stone, she slowly picked it up and began cradling it in her arms as if it was her child. "You're so beautiful…"
As Dex picked up the jewels by himself, he glared over at his female partner. "Hey, I thought you said you were going to help m--" He raised an eyebrow in confusion as he watched Ed act 'motherly' towards the ruby she was holding. "Ed…" he began, slowly. "Just what in the hell do you think you're doing?"
"It's Edward's baby…" Edward replied, rocking the large ruby side to side like a baby. "Isn't she pretty?"
"Yeah, yeah, it's pretty…" Dex muttered, a tad freaked out by this sudden development. He put his hand out, moving his fingers back and forth in a 'gimme' motion. "Now give me the stone. Jet could come back at any minute!"
"NO!" she screamed, turning away from him. "She's Edward's! You can't have her!"
The man sighed, annoyed at this new predicament that had arisen. "Ed, quit playing around. Give me the ruby before we get chewed out by the old man."
"Get away from us!" she snarled, putting the jewel in her mouth and crawling away like some sort of animal. Dex quickly gave chase, but she beat him to her room, locking the door as it shut in his face.
Rubbing his temples, he sighed. "I cannot believe this…" Knocking on the door, he screamed. "Ed! Damn it Ed, open this door! We don't have time for your fooling around!"
On the other side of the door, Ed spit out the ruby. Smiling at it, she cooed. "Are you alright, my darling?" Glaring at the door, she growled in a low tone, like a dog guarding it's home from a thief at night. "I want to keep the ruby! It will get taken away forever if I give it back!"
"Ed, we can't…" Dex said sadly. To tell the truth, he wouldn't mind taking a few jewels for himself. "Every jewel needs to be accounted for in order for us to collect the reward money."
"I don't wanna!" she shouted, holding the ruby tightly against her chest.
"Ed…" Dex said a little more loudly, losing his patience.
"But it's pretty!" Edward shouted, holding back tears.
Dex looked around the room for anything that could help him out of this mess. His eye slowly focused on Ed's laptop. It was low, but it had to be done. Picking it up, he began to shout at the top of his lungs. "Edward!" he shouted in an angry voice. "If you don't open that door by the count of ten, I'm going to smash your computer into pieces!"
Shocked, the young hacker's eyes widened in horror at this announcement. "You wouldn't…"
"You think I'm KIDDING?" Dex screamed. "I'm holding it in my hands right now! 10!"
"Not my Tomato…" she said softly, tears running down her face. "How cruel…"
He continued his countdown. "9! 8! 7!"
"You…" Ed grit her teeth angrily. She wasn't scared anymore, she was pissed. How dare he threaten her precious laptop like that! "You BASTARD!" she screeched. "Don't you dare hurt my Tomato!"
Dex, un-phased, kept on counting. "6! 5! 4! 3! 2!--" The door suddenly slammed open, a very ticked looking Edward staring at him with rage. "Just in time!" He began to get a little worried as he looked at her expression. Slowly setting down the Tomato, he began to chuckle nervously. "Um, Ed, I--" He screamed as she jumped on him violently, sending them both tumbling to the ground. The ruby went flying through the air as she quickly overpowered him and grabbed him in a headlock. "Ed! ED! I'm sorry! I had no choice!"
"You shit head! You jerk! You asshole!" Ed shouted, squeezing his neck tightly. "I'm going to kill you!" She glared at Frank as he began to laugh his head off at the scene.
"Ack!" Dex wheezed, trying to pry her arms off of his neck to no avail. "You're choking me!"
"Good!" Ed replied. Suddenly, there was a shattering noise. Turning to the source of the sound, they both gasped as they saw the broken remains of the 'ruby'. Slowly loosening her grip on Dex, "It was… it was…"
"…fake?" Dex asked, finishing the question. Growling, he turned to Frank. "What's the big idea, HUH? I almost got killed for that fake piece of shit! Are all of them fake?"
"Yes, actually." the captured bounty head replied. "What, you think I'm stupid enough to carry my jewels around? My accomplice is probably on the other edge of the galaxy by no--" His eyes widened as Ed and Dex brought out fully loaded guns, cocking them. "H-hey guys, let's not get too hasty!" He closed his eyes tightly, screaming as they pulled the triggers. He could hear the bullets slamming against the metal wall. And then silence. Slowly opening his eyes, he shivered in fear. They had shot around him with blanks. Having soiled his pants in fear, he then passed out. Again.
Blowing the smoke away from their guns, the cowboy and cowgirl looked to each other and smirked.
That's just the way that it is, Cowgirl and Cowboy…
