For this coming chapter, I decided to work with anime logic more than strict real-life accuracy. In the anime, Spike survives crazy injuries that would get a man killed in real life and has a surprising resistance to bleeding out and falling from great heights. So, I ran with the flavor of the anime here XD

This chapter also contains a switch in perspective near the end - it'll be evident why when you get there (I hope). It just didn't feel right to physically split the chapter at that point, so I opted for the perspective shift rather than a break of some sort.

And last...this chapter was killer. I put this thing through so many revisions I lost count...there was a lot I hoped to accomplish here and I think I finally got it...so if you never review another chapter in this story, thoughts on this one would be appreciated ;) And now without further ado...3, 2, 1 Let's Jam

Session Thirty Five

Leon stirred. Everything hurt. His hands and face stung from the shards of glass lodged in his skin. His left knee felt like someone had twisted it out of joint and strung it back on with barbed wire. Something crunched and grated in his right shoulder. And there was heat everywhere. Heat and flame. Like his very bones caught fire. Smoke filled his lungs. He coughed. His throat hurt. And his head. His head pounded like someone had been set loose with a sledgehammer in his skull.

Leon cracked his eyes open. For a second, he didn't know where he was. He was lying on the floor, facing a twisted hunk of metal and glass. The room wavered in and out of focus. Fire and smoke swirled at the edges of his vision.

He groaned and pushed himself up on one elbow, wincing as every muscle and bone in his body protested. Glass crackled and crunched underneath him. And then it hit him. He was in the ballroom in the Dragon Tower. He craned his head to look at the gaping hole in the ceiling two stories up. Then he looked down at the floor around him. It was a miracle he wasn't dead right now.

He got to unsteady hands and knees, yelping as his left knee took weight. Shards of glass bit into his palms, but he bit the inside of his cheek to distract himself from the pain and levered himself to his feet. He looked around for his stolen gun. He'd dropped it in all the chaos above, but maybe it had fallen too. Perhaps - there! By some miracle, the gun lay on the floor only a few feet away, shimmering faintly in the firelight.

"I bet this is exactly how they looked. Except, your father had a weapon, of course."

Leon whirled, wincing as his knee took the brunt of his turn, and faced Villanova. She stood on the other side of the chandelier with barely a hair out of place, smiling. The deadly katana hung on her hip.

"They?" Leon took a slow step back toward his gun.

"You know who I mean," Villanova said conversationally, resting her hand on the hilt of the slender blade.

Leon didn't answer. He took another step back.

"I take it you know whose sword this is?" she continued calmly.

"Vicious," Leon guessed, remembering the history that he'd read.

"Precisely," she said, stepping forward, her footsteps crunching in the broken glass. She drew the sword, its steel edge whispering against the sheathe. "And you know whose blood this blade last tasted, don't you?" she continued.

Leon narrowed his eyes.

"Your father's," she said, taking another step forward.

Leon stepped back again, getting closer to the gun and putting more chandelier between himself and Villanova.

"And now it's going to taste yours!" she shouted and lunged forward, sword flashing through the air like lightning. Leon scrambled back as fast as he could and wrapped his hand around the pistol just as the katana came down at his head. Leon flung the pistol up to block the sword, and a metallic clang rang in the air as blade and barrel clashed. Leon grunted and shoved the blade back, then leaped away from Villanova. She had reach, but that wouldn't matter so long as Leon could get a clear shot. He checked the gun in the momentary reprieve and cursed under his breath. He only had one bullet left. He couldn't miss.

And Villanova knew it. She continued to pursue him, making stabs and lunges at him so that it was all he could do to keep his feet and keep the blade away from himself. He staggered around the chandelier, keeping anything and everything he could between himself and Villanova. Villanova stepped forward like a fencer, extending the katana to its full reach. Leon spun out of the way, but the blade caught his trench coat, tangling in the buckle. Leon jerked away and tore the buckle free as he rolled behind some of the seats in the ballroom. He coughed as smoke and embers rained down around him. His knee protested as he jumped over the first row of seats and onto the second tier.

"Why are you still trying to kill me?" he demanded. He knelt behind the chairs to catch his breath. "Your plan's over, Villanova. Everybody knows I'm a fake. You don't have an audience anymore. Killing me won't do anything!"

Leon lunged back as the deadly katana erupted through the chair in front of him, missing his face by mere inches.

"Killing you will make you very, very dead," Villanova snarled as she pulled the blade out of the chair. "And that will make me very, very satisfied!"

Leon vaulted haphazardly over the next tier of seats, heading higher. As he dragged himself upwards, the smoke grew thicker and he couldn't see well enough to take a shot. Villanova became an indistinct smudge in the fire below, stalking him, waiting at the bottom of the raised seats. He'd have to stay on the floor with her if he had any hope of hitting her. She knew he'd have to come down. He paused to get his bearings, wishing he could see better through the smoke. He felt something shift in his right eye again, and suddenly he saw the room in heat signatures. He closed his left eye and watched fire lick at the walls in violent shades of red. In contrast, Villanova was a mix of cooler hues, green and blue. But her heart beat as hot as the fire, red and pulsing in her chest. She was facing away from him at the moment, circling the chairs, waiting on Leon to come down. Leon aimed the gun from where he stood, his finger resting on the trigger, but he couldn't bring himself to pull it. Not in cold blood in her back. It was one thing when she was trying to kill him. It was quite another to take such an advantage in the fight.

"Damn it," he cursed under his breath and released the trigger. Below him, he saw Villanova swivel towards him, circling the chairs so that she stood underneath him. Leon looked around the room again. There was no good way out without a fight. With his knee threatening to give out on him at any second, he couldn't move fast enough to run away. But there was one way he could catch her off guard. Leon shook his head at his own crazy scheme, then launched himself off the tier, dropping straight down on Villanova.

He meant to catch her by surprise and tackle her to the ground, but at the last second, she threw herself out of the way and he landed awkwardly in the shards of glass on the floor. He grit his teeth as his knee gave out under the impact, sending him into an unsteady kneel. He blinked, letting his vision return to normal so that he could clearly see the katana again. A whistle in the air behind him alerted him as katana swung out of the smoke aimed for his head. He rolled onto his back and blocked the blade with his pistol again, but this time he felt cold steel slice his knuckles. Hot blood dripped down his wrist as Villanova pressed her advantage, pinning him to the floor with the force of her strike. She pressed closer, trying to angle the blade down and into his chest, her face a mask of hatred. Leon took a deep breath and shoved her blade back. At the same time, he swept a leg at her feet. He hooked his right foot behind her ankle and pulled, rolling himself out of the sword's reach as he did so.

Villanova shouted in surprise and fell, momentarily losing her balance. She let herself fall into a roll, ending back on her feet. By the time she recovered, Leon was standing with his gun pointed firmly at her chest.

She laughed. Blood stained the tip of her blade. Her uniform was torn on one shoulder and her pants were ripped over one bloody knee. Leon panted, feeling blood ooze down his own hand and the sting of glass lodged in his clothes.

"Go ahead and shoot me, Mr. Spiegel. Do it. Pull the trigger." She took a step closer. "You know you want to."

Leon's finger twitched on the trigger. Is this really what he wanted?

"Come now, aren't you going to shoot me?" Villanova drawled. She took another step closer. Leon backed away.

"Your father would have done it by now," she said.

"I am not my father," Leon said softly.

"Then why don't you put the gun down?" Villanova asked.

"Because I've got no wish to die," Leon said. "I know you don't have any qualms about stabbing me and right now this is all I've got between you and me."

Villanova stepped forward again. Two steps this time.

Leon backed up, feeling the shattered chandelier hit the backs of his legs. He was out of room. His heart thudded in his chest, blood rushing in his ears. His finger trembled against the trigger.

"You've got nowhere else to go, boy. It's time you make your decision. Pull the trigger - or die!"

Villanova lunged then, sword coming straight at Leon's chest.

Leon yelled.

The gun went off.

Pain knifed through him.

Leon looked down to see the katana buried in his right side, the deadly blade sticking out his back. Villanova still held the hilt, a sickly grin pasted on her features. Leon let his gaze slide down her face to her chest where a bright red spot blossomed on her uniform and spread. She looked down at herself in surprise. She coughed. Blood trickled from her mouth.

"So," she said. "You pulled it after all. You bastard."

She fell to her knees, drawing ragged breaths.

Leon watched in stunned silence as she fell sideways and collapsed against the chandelier. Her hand went limp and slid from the sword.

Leon looked down at the smoking gun in his hand, his finger still clenched around the trigger. He'd pulled it.

Despite the heat of the room, cold, icy numbness slipped up his fingers. His gun fell to the ground, landing near Villanova's boot. Leon took a long, shuddering gasp and fell to his hands and knees, every movement sending acute shivers of pain down his spine. Glass shards sliced his palms, but he hardly noticed.

A footstep crunched in broken glass to his left. He looked over at a pair of black dress shoes. Then the rest of Draugh's figure descended into view as the Dragon lieutenant knelt beside him. He held a gun in his right hand, letting it dangle casually against his leg.

"So, you really did it," Draugh said. "I was beginning to think you didn't have the guts."

"You were...watching?" Leon asked.

"Naturally."

Leon eyed Draugh's gun. "So you could...finish it. Of course," he groaned, closing his eyes and steeling himself for the inevitable bullet. So this was how it would end after all. After all the running, all the fighting. It was going to end right here. At the hands of the Dragon. Fate had a strange sense of irony.

"There's not much left to finish is there?" Draugh asked quietly. "It seems like you shot to kill."

"You're not...going to...kill me?" Leon asked. He coughed and shuddered as the action wracked his whole body.

"Well, I'll oblige you if dying is what you want. Forgive me if I assumed Leon Spiegel wanted to live." Draugh let the gun come up, the barrel pointing at Leon.

"No, wait," Leon held up a hand, opening both eyes. "I think...Leon Spiegel...is willing to take you up...on that living thing."

"Not ready to die yet?"

"Well...I always sort of...assumed...I'd get out of this alive. I'd kinda hate to...let myself down."

"Just as cocky as ever, aren't you?" Draugh smiled crookedly. "If you want to keep making quips like that, then we'd better get you out of here." He slid his gun into a shoulder holster under his jacket, then got an arm under Leon's on his uninjured side and hauled him to his feet, despite his whimpers of protest.

Leon found himself face to face with the Dragon lieutenant for a moment. He looked back at Villanova one last time. She looked small and broken, lying against the chandelier with glass around her and fire licking at her boots. He felt something warm trickle down his cheeks. Was he crying? He looked at Draugh's blurry face. "Why?" he asked.

Draugh looked around the room, his gaze settling everywhere but on Villanova or Leon. "I wasn't lying, back at the temple, when I said I trained your father in the Syndicate. And I hope you don't think I'm lying now when I say he was the best this Syndicate ever had. Turns out I'm a sentimental old fool and my loyalty wasn't really to the Dragon after all." Draugh sounded surprised at the words coming out of his mouth. "I think I owe it to the memory of your father to get you out of here."

Leon was speechless. He let Draugh lead him out of the ballroom, half-carrying him. Leon was in no position to protest and he was pretty sure that he'd collapse if he let go of Draugh right now. Much as he hated to admit it, his life was in the Dragon lieutenant's hands. He had no choice but to trust him.

Draugh stopped at an elevator just a few steps down the hall. "Let's hope the damn thing still works," he said, mashing the button to head up. After a few moments, there was a metallic ring and the doors slid open to reveal an undamaged car. Draugh dragged Leon into it. Leon leaned heavily against him as the doors slid closed, pressing a hand to his side.

"Don't touch it," Draugh said gruffly, pulling his hand away. "You can't pull it out yet."

"It...hurts," Leon panted, eyes screwed shut.

"That's life, boy," Draugh said, but he flicked a worried glance to the blood dripping onto the floor at Leon's feet. Leon's mouth was a tight grimace, his face pale.

The elevator shuddered and Draugh steadied himself against the wall, giving Leon something to hold onto as the car jostled to a stop. The glowing plaque over the door read 10. Draugh cursed under his breath.

"Not where you...wanted?" Leon asked, opening his eyes.

"No, dammit. We're a floor below where we need to be. But that's what you get when you crash a ship into a building and set everything on fire."

Leon's eyes widened. "Jet...the Bebop?"

"It appears that way," Draugh said grimly. "Now, you think you got enough feeling left in your hand to hold this?" Draugh reached into his pocket and pulled out Leon's Jericho.

Leon stared at it dumbly.

"It's your gun, boy," Draugh said. "You think you can pull the trigger? I can't guarantee that this door isn't going to open on a bunch of half-crazed Dragon soldiers."

Leon swallowed and took the gun in a shaky hand. "Yeah," he whispered hoarsely. "I think I can shoot."

"Good. I can get us to the stairs. Let's go."

The elevator door slid open with a slight hiss. Smoke drifted lazily through the hallway on the other side, but no one moved in the haze. Most everybody in the Tower was running the opposite direction anyway, trying to make it to the ground floor so they could leave. Unless they were crazy, Leon didn't figure too many of them decided to run towards the explosion at the top of the Tower. They were back on the circular floors of the Tower, and Draugh guided Leon around the edge of the floor, keeping a careful distance between himself and the dizzying drop in the center of the Tower. They walked up to a staircase and Leon stared up at it blearily.

"Draugh...I can't," he said. The room spun and he felt sick to his stomach. It took everything in him not to vomit, which he was pretty sure would be the death of him right now.

"You're gonna have to, kid," Draugh said, sounding tired himself. "It's the only way to get to your friends."

Just then a clatter on the stairs above them announced the presence of a newcomer. Draugh put his hand in his coat and Leon adjusted his blood-slick grip on the Jericho as Jet burst into view. Jet stopped on the stairs as soon as he saw Leon and Draugh. Leon sagged in relief.

Jet raised his Walther. "Get away from him, Draugh!" Jet shouted.

Draugh pulled his hand out of his coat and held it up, keeping his other arm around Leon. "I'm not trying to hurt him!" Draugh shouted. "I'm trying to save him. Besides, letting him go right now is a bad idea." He looked pointedly at Leon.

Jet paused, looking between Leon and Draugh. "He's right, Jet," Leon said, his words slurred with pain and exhaustion. Jet hesitated for a moment more, then he put his Walther back in it's holster and ran down the last of the steps.

"You look like hell, kid," Jet grumbled as he put an arm under Leon's other side, careful to avoid the sword.

Leon groaned as the two men lifted him onto the staircase. "I feel worse," he managed to mumble.

"That was a nasty tactic, crashing your ship into the Tower," Draugh said conversationally as he and Jet carried Leon up the stairs.

"Well, it was the best I could come up with on short notice," Jet replied. "How come you're being so friendly all of a sudden?" he asked, shooting a suspicious look at Draugh over Leon's head.

"I realized that my loyalties lay...elsewhere," Draugh said.

"Had enough of your esteemed leader, did you?"

"She's dead," Draugh answered, although that wasn't the question Jet asked.

Jet looked over at Draugh in surprise.

"I'm not the one with bloody hands," Draugh said.

Jet gave Leon a sharp glare. His hands were bloody from a number of scratches and a nasty gash across the knuckles of his right hand. Was Draugh implying that some of that was Villanova's blood? What had Leon done after he fell through the floor?

Jet saw the explosion on the ninth floor. In fact, he'd gotten there just in time to save Faye from some red-headed Dragon zealot. It wasn't much of a fight - the Dragons scattered after Jet armed Faye, more intent on their own survival after dispatching Leon. He got the story of what happened out of Faye as he got her safely back to the ship. But it hadn't taken him that long to get her to the Bebop and come running back downstairs. Why hadn't he just come straight for Leon and let Faye go back herself?

If he was honest with himself, he'd been stalling. He was afraid of what he'd find in the ballroom. The cameras on the seventh and eighth floors short-circuited after Leon shot a chandelier in the ballroom and Ed couldn't tell him what to expect. They couldn't even confirm that Leon survived the fall. He didn't want to find Leon lying still and lifeless. He didn't want to face the ugly head of the Dragon, reared in victory.

But if he'd just come earlier, would he have found Leon like he was now? Pale and bloody with a sword in his gut? Jet cursed his hesitance. Leon was alive for now, and if Jet had anything to do with it, he was going to stay that way come hell or high water.

The trio made their way about halfway up the staircase when Jet heard shouting from below. Draugh risked a glance over his shoulder, his expression grim. "It's seems we're about to have company." He drew his pistol. "He's all yours, Mr. Black. Get him out of here."

"And you?" Jet asked, slipping under Leon's uninjured side as Draugh stepped away and took a stance on the stairs, gun raised.

"I'm going to watch your six."

Jet met Draugh's gaze for a long moment. Then the two men nodded at each other and Jet began the slow process of hauling Leon up the last of the steps. Draugh lagged a few stairs behind, gun at the ready as the shouting drew closer.

"Stop them! They're getting away!" a voice yelled. Jet recognized it as the red-headed Dragon soldier from earlier. Even with Villanova dead and the Syndicate in shambles, there were still a few true Dragons in the Tower.

"Malcolm, you got any backup you can spare?" Jet spoke into his com as the first of Draugh's shots rang out. He heard a strangled yell and a thump as someone fell. But Draugh's gun barked again, so Jet kept moving.

No, can do, Jet, Malcolm sounded out of breath. We've got a few who decided to fight back. And half my force is already gone, transporting prisoners. I'll do what I can, but I can't promise much. Shots sounded on the com and then it went dead on Malcolm's end.

Jet cursed under his breath and got Leon to the top of the stairs. The eleventh floor was in a shambles, lights flickering half-heartedly in busted sockets, rubble and debris from the crash lying in scattered piles. Haphazard fires burned where something electrical short-circuited and sparks jumped from severed wires in the ceiling. Jet had crashed the Bebop straight through the guest suite and into the Tower and now the ship lay in the middle of the floor, her nose hanging over the open circle in the center of the Tower. Her stern hung outside the Tower, engines still running.

"Faye, get her ready!" Jet yelled into his com. "I've got Leon."

Just then Leon went limp against him, his legs giving out as he slid toward the floor. Jet just managed to catch him and keep him upright.

"Draugh, how's it going back there?" Jet yelled, risking a glance over his shoulder.

Draugh gave him a fierce grin through the blood dripping from a graze on his forehead. "The bastards aren't as tough as they wish. But they're regrouping. You'd better hurry."

Draugh took a defensive position behind some rubble near the Bebop's nose just as some Dragon soldiers burst from the staircase. He shot them down with cold precision as Jet gathered Leon into his arms like a child, careful to avoid the blade still lodged in his side. Jet broke into a run, praying that if Leon had survived this long, he could stand just a little more.

Faye appeared in the doorway to the Bebop waving at Jet to hurry. Behind him, Jet heard Draugh shout in pain, but he didn't stop. He didn't look back. A bullet whizzed by him, striking the floor in front of him. A moment later, Jet reached the door of the Bebop. A wide-eyed Faye helped him pull Leon inside as a few bullets slammed into the Bebop's hull. They got inside and Jet paused in the doorway for a moment to look back at Draugh. He was running toward the Bebop, shooting over his shoulder as he threw himself behind another rubble barrier. Jet counted six men in hot pursuit, and several more lying unmoving on the ground. Draugh looked up and met Jet's gaze. Blood dripped from his shoulder and leg now. An unspoken question hung in the air between them. Then Draugh shook his head, a grim smile on his face and spun to shoot three more men before they had a chance to even draw their weapons.

Jet turned away and slammed the door shut.

"Get us out of here, Faye! I've got Leon. Where's Ed?"

"On the bridge."

"Send her to me, now," Jet brought Leon over to the couch and Faye ran to the bridge.

A few seconds later, Jet felt the familiar thrum under his feet as Bebop's engines accelerated to full power and the ship nosed her way out of the burning Dragon Tower. The last thing Jet saw out the porthole was Draugh, standing in the gaping hole of the Tower, a bloody figure bathed in fire. He raised one hand in a salute as the flash of gunfire surrounded him.

"Bloody hero," Jet swore, but he saluted back as Draugh collapsed.

"Leon...Leon…"

It was cold.

"I don't think he can hear you."

Goosebumps prickled his flesh, and shivers threatened to rip him to pieces.

"He's got to be in there somewhere."

"Dammit, kid, don't die on me now."

Everything was red. His vision. The taste in his mouth. His hands. The blood on his shirt.

"You want me to WHAT?"

"You've got to. Steady now. On three."

Some part of his mind registered pain so great it became a second thought. Pain so overwhelming it ripped every thought, every breath from his body. He tried to speak, to say something, anything, but his jaw was locked in a grimace. The only sound that escaped his teeth was a pitiful whimper.

"Oh, God, there's so much blood."

"He made noise! I heard him!"

"Ed, FOCUS!"

Something hot slid into his side. Like fire. Like the sword. Like a bullet. Sharp and fast. In and out, in and out, rhythmic and panicked and steady and urgent. Like a heartbeat, fluttering, stammering, skipping and slowing with the beat of the heart in his chest.

"Are you sure this will work?"

"It damn well better, because we don't have any other options."

Someone wrapped an arm under his shoulders and he felt the same sharp sting slide in and out of his back. Faster, more sure this time. But so blood-slick. Blood rushed in his ears so loud it was an ocean. His breath rasped in his throat so hot and thick it was fire.

"Jet…Jet! We're losing him!"

No...no, I'm right here.

"Hold on, Leo! Hold on!"

But to what?

"You'd better not die, you selfish bastard! Don't you even think about it!"

But here...here there was no thought. Here there was only dark. And there was peace. Finally. Peace.

And quiet.