A/N: Yes, once again, Xavior Nightshadow returns to the world of Requiem for a Dragon. JADAS is next.

Session 3: One Man Army

Spike, in his career as a bounty hunter, had found, and lost, 5 bounties in the last three days. He had heard of bad luck before, but this was like… cursed. And he couldn't even blame it on the kid. Half the time he had only managed to get the guy at all because of her, and the other half, she was off looking for… candy or something. Kids. Who knew? Trying to see into one of their heads was impossible. The kid, however, had apparently decided it was worth a look into his head, as she was now, much to his consternation, sitting on his head. Bent over, looking into his eyes through a pair of goggles.

"You're not going to see anything but my eyes, kid."

"That's because there's nothing past Spike-spike's eyes but empty skull, 'cause he's a lunkhead! But I don't wanna see Spike-person's brains and stuffs. Spike-Spike's eyes are weird."

"Hnn?" Looking into the reflection in the goggles, he could tell she was right. One of his eyes was a definite different shade than the other… almost red. "Oh, I guess you're right. But do ya have to sit on my head?"

"No." Spike sighed in relief. "But I liiike it!" A groan, and hands swept up for the little girl caught in Spike's hair.

"C'mere, ya little pain! I'm getting you out of there one way or another!"

"You'll never take me alive, Spike-Spike!"

What would've been a struggle of epic proportions was cut off by a sudden series of beeps from Ed's computer. Ed, it seemed, had a message.

"He's dead, you know. He can't come here."

Iramitsu shook his head. "I don't think so. Saw him myself. And he's going to come here… or you're going to end up suffering the consequences." Iramitsu looked at the captive. He had found her in a bar on Callisto, of all places. "Besides… I owe him one."

Faye just sighed. "Some men… so deluded…" Quietly, she went to work, trying to find some way to grind the ropes down.

Spike had retreated into the back room of the duo's small apartment on Earth. When you were trying to be "dead", you didn't want to be seen on every video message made or received by a 14 year old girl. Ed, on the other hand, had just opened the message. "Talkie-talkie, talkie-walkie, whatcha got to say to Ed?" The message popped up, and Faye could clearly be seen, bound up, with Iramitsu in the background. "Oooh, Faye-Faye's done it again!" Onscreen, Iramitsu started talking.

"You're lucky it took me this long to find you. If I'd've done it sooner, I could've eliminated you on my way off the planet. Unfortunately, I had to settle for plotting my revenge from afar… But I picked up a nice little token on Callisto. If you want her back, come and take her."

"Ooooh, Spike-Spike must come to the rescue of the damsel in distress! Innnteresting. Does he accept the challenge? I say he does! He shall march boldly to rescue his true love!"
Spike poked his head out of the back room, and took a quick glance at the screen. "Who the hell is that?"

"A damsel in distress, a former friend, ton copain, mon ami! It seems mean old mister Iramitsu here is threatening you with her!"

"Oh, yeah, kidnap someone to get back at an amnesiac. Makes a lot of sense." Spike furrowed his brow, obviously deep in thought. "We're going shopping. I'm gonna buy a nice, loose-fitting set of clothes… and a ship."

Ed grinned. "And a souvenir for Ed!"

"Wha? Oh, okay, fine. We'll grab you a souvenir… damn kids…" Spike walked out, Ed tagging along, and made his way along the shops. He stopped once to buy, as he had earlier stated, a comfortable, loose-fitting pair of pants, along with matching shirt. The shirt was silver and black, with the word DUALITY printed across the back, black on the silver half of the shirt and silver on the black half. The pants were black, with a red dragon tracing up one leg. "Hmmn. Not bad." He bought it with what meager funds he had available, also grabbing a black bandana, which he quickly tied so that it concealed the lower half of his face before untying it and pocketing it. "Now, let's go get a ship."

"But Spike-person, we're out of money!"

"I said GET a ship. I never said we'd buy it."

"Ooooooh… Spike-Spike is bad to the bone!"

"You know it, kid." Spike laughed, making his way down (with occasional direction from Ed, despite his protests that he knew exactly where he was going), to a local repair shop. "Alright, here we go. You head home and get ready for me. They don't tie these things down, because they're either spare parts or gonna be. Easy grab." As Ed nodded and began to move back toward home, quickly going into a near-four-legged run, Spike moved quickly through the group of workers, his outfit just casual enough to spare him notice. As he reached the back, he saw a guard sitting in front of the back room, where a large "employees only" sign hung. "They never make these things easy… I guess I'm gonna have to pay for it." He dug into his pocket, and pulled out a small coin. "My last woolong. Well, at least it's for a good cause." He flicked it out past the guard, down a small hallway, causing, in some bizarre streak of good luck, a metallic crash.

"Hmmn? Sounds like someone's getting into the parts… better go check it out." The guard stood up, moving toward the woolong… and another began to move in, seeing the spot was vacant. Before he would attract too much attention, Spike moved in, slipping past the door, though not without notice of the new guard, who doubled his pace.

"Time for a rush buy…" As soon as Spike looked, though, there was only one choice. A cool, red ship, a little dinged up, but definitely workable. He jumped in and began to try to start the ship, which refused to kick in. Finally, he growled, and brought his foot back as far as the seat would allow, slamming it into the dash. The engine roared to life, and he grinned. "We're in business, baby." He brought the ship up a little bit in the large back room, and spun it around. The only doors were steel, huge, and closed. "We'll just have to fix that." Working the controls, Spike quickly located what he wanted… a laser that quickly cut a hole through the wall. It wasn't quite big enough by the time the security burst in, though. "This is gonna get heavy!" He jammed on the throttle, the whole ship shooting forward into the rip in the door, shredding it further, metal flying past the ship as it pushed through. "And we're outta here!" A quick half-flip had Spike flying back toward home, upside-down until he did a quick 180 turn. "And there we go! Now, let's roll on out of here before they decide to get into one of the other fine craft in there…" The throttle still pushed to the max, Spike weaved through the buildings before slowing down a bit as he reached the apartment he and Ed shared. The girl waved toward him, then seemed to giggle as he landed.

"It figures Spike-Spike would take that one…"

"I like its style. And I think she likes me."

Ed just shook her head. "Lunkhead Spike's probably in trouuuble! You'd better get going, Spike-Spike!"

"Alright… just toss me my hat."

"Here ya go!" Ed tossed him the oversized hat, which he quickly titled down to partially cover his eyes.

"See ya, kid." Spike took off into the air, then shot out into space, tying the bandana around the lower half of his face.

Ed stared up at the rapidly disappearing dot that was her friend. "Spike-Spike forgot to buy me a souvenir… Lunkhead's gonna get it when he lands!"

It was only when Spike was already out in space that it occurred to him. He quickly flicked on the communications system, and flicked over to Ed's frequency. "Hey, Ed."

"Spike forgot to ask for directions! Silly Spike. Hereeee ya go!"

Spike could only shake his head. "Too damn smart." As he cut off the connection, the coordinates popped up, and he set the ship to autopilot. "The only thing worse than a kid… is a woman with attitude."

One such woman was slowly working away at her ropes. Unfortunately, they were tied tight, so the only way she could wear them down at all was slight twists of her body that barely moved them. This… was gonna take a while.

As Spike approached, his ship pulled down, onto the surface of Mars. The building he had landed at appeared to be a defunct bar… "Sullivan's? He's running a kidnapping attempt… out of a place called Sullivan's. That's almost sad. Actually, that's really sad." Spike sighed. "Better go save the day…" And of course, he had barely stepped into the place when a shot rang by his ear. A couple of guys moved toward him, and he instinctively dropped, tossing a kick up into the gut of one of the men, pulling his leg aside in a way that dragged across the man and caused him to stumble into another, who dropped his gun. Spike caught it and immediately dove over the bar, his foot nearly catching on a stool on his way over. The dusty glasses overhead shattered as a couple more goons moved in, and he fired toward them, the first couple shots going wild before he found the rhythm of the gun and took down the following wave. The gun was spent at this point and he tossed it aside, having no spare clips to work with. Before he could move to pick another one up, though, another man stepped into the room, this time from behind the bar, and Spike was aware of him just in time to feel a foot hit his back. He gasped a bit, then felt the cold press of metal against the back of his head.

"You're damn good. Makes sense."

"Are you going to pull the trigger, or is this going to turn into a pleasant chat?"

"Oh, trust me, I'm going to – "

The time the man had taken for his answer was just enough for Spike to hook his foot behind the man's leg, pulling him back, the man firing just in time to make a neat rip through Spike's favorite hat. Spike rewarded him with an extra little stomp on the man's gun hand, grinding the metal into the goon's flesh. Then he stepped over him and into the back room.

Iramitsu, as expected, was not happy to see him. "You just don't know how to die properly, do you, Spiegel?"

Faye looked at her would-be rescuer. On one hand, the goofy disguise thing was just his style. On the other, this guy looked almost… too small to be Spike. It could just be the big clothes, but it was hard to tell. Plus she couldn't see his eyes. If there was one noticeable thing about Spike, it was definitely his eyes. On the other other hand… This guy had just waded through a bunch of syndicate goons and a good amount of gunfire just to rescue her.

Yeah… there was no way in hell it was Spike.

Spike, on the other hand, was more concerned with the slightly metallic taste in his mouth. It wasn't blood. At least, he didn't think it was blood. He hadn't been hit hard enough to be tasting blood… Especially since not a single one of Iramitsu's blows so far had been directed at his face. But the guy could fight... Since when? Hadn't he beat the crap out of the guy just a few days ago? A quick duck and a flurry of kicks were responded to by a block and a single well-placed punch that brushed against the cheek of the quick-moving Spike. Now it was definitely blood. He sighed. His marks just didn't know when to quit. On the next swing from Iramitsu, he made a grab for the man's arm and pulled, moving his target forward as he raised his foot, Iramitsu's face making brutal contact with the tip of Spike's foot. He brought down his leg, twisted the arm in his grasp, and brought a stunned Iramitsu to the ground. "You said I could take her, right?"

Iramitsu was in no condition to answer.

A few minutes later, Faye was out of her ropes. Her first act as a free woman was to snatch for her rescuer's hat, but he twisted, so she just managed to bring it down over his eyes. He backed away, and before he righted the hat, a small tuft of green hair could be seen.

"Spike?"

"Your mysterious rescuer. Now, we need to talk reward."
"Reward?"

"I saved the princess, didn't I? Where's my half the kingdom?"

"I've got a couple cough drops…"

Spike grinned from behind his bandana. "I'll take 'em."

"What happened to half the kingdom? You get half, which means one. Cherry or Honey Lemon?"

"Cherry. Honey Lemon tastes like shit."

"You suck. Fine." She handed off the cough drop, only to watch it disappear up a sleeve in a quick sleight of hand. "Remind me not to play cards with you."

"Not even a quick hand? That's a shame." He began to walk off.

"Hey, wait up!"

"What?"

"How am I getting out of here?"

"There's a phone around here somewhere. Call a cab. My ship's not a two-seater." Spike was gone a few moments later.

"What an asshole… If I find out that really was Spike, I'm so gonna kick his ass." Faye stormed out of the back room, taking the opportunity to grind her heel into a very sensitive region of Iramitsu's body.

Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name…

Faye: If I ever find that little bastard again, I'm gonna kill him!

Spike: I scored a cough drop… sweet.

Ed: Spike forgot to get Ed a souvenir…

Next Session:

Been Caught Stealing