By Zaybach1

(In memory of William Dean Dettle.

The greatest Space Cowboy in the solar system!)

Age: 23

Weight: 140 lbs.

Height: 5ft.4

Wanted for: Data theft, weapons programming and smuggling.

Details: Puck is wanted on Telesto for Data theft. Originally a Technological designer for a notorious gang called The Council of Wizards, he created specialized weapon Programs and computers. Then, one day he disappeared after using nearly all the

wizard’s resources, (a.k.a. money.) to created his own program and stole their computers as well, and has been selling the illegal technology to underground buyers.

Reward/Bounty: 10 million woulong

Location: Bills Insane Electronic O’Rama!

Current Information: Puck will be making an exchange/deal behind the alley of the store.

In his ear, the headpiece COM crackled with life as the connection with his fellow comrades blitzed.

"Remember Oberon, it is the Recorder that is important. Puck is and must be expendable." Merlin- one of his fellow comrades- informed him quietly though the COM.

"Understood." Was all he said back, and he reached up under the hood, his long leathered fingers clicking the ear COM off.

Oberon’s hand paused then fluttered back down from the COM to lay flat out onto the flat top of the briefcase lightly, his fingers fluttering and caressing the case as light as a doves wings.

"Shhhh." His soft and smooth voice whispered, cutting through the quiet car. Next to him the back door was opened and he turned his head to peer out for a moment at one of his ‘Associates’- a man named Silver dressed in a black suite and tie with dark sunglasses, was holding onto the doorknob of the car door. He watched a moment before slowly climbing out, his boots quietly setting down on the cement and he ducked as he ducked as he climbed out of the car, his right hand clutching the briefcase.

Oberon straightened up for a moment and didn’t even blink an expression when the trunk of the car slammed shut and Silver and another associates clicked the ammunition into their guns from the hidden compartment in the trunk.

"Wait." Was all the Wizard said and walked forward towards the alley.

Behind the run down and long since abandoned ‘Bill’s Insane Electronic O’rama’ store, the quiet and dark back ally behind it was utterly filthy.

The only light that illuminated the ally was from the bent light over the door of the store. It eerily cast a dim glow across the broken down and littered cement. On the far side of the mouth of the ally a broken chain link fence enclosing the area was bent horribly long pieces of the links wire sticking out. The bricks of the surrounding buildings where long since crumbling and cracked, and the entire place was covered in littered dibree and trash.

Most of that trash was scattered through out the entire alleyway, and not in the dumpster on the side of the electronics’ store- although there was already a substantial amount of trash there as well. And inside that dumpster was possibly more disgusting then the outside.

For inside that garbage dumpster trash in garbage bags, and stray litter had been piled inside and had been there for quiet a while since the Dump Trucks didn’t come out to this side of town. Food that was nearly a millennium old was strewn out of exploding bags, and culminating in thick syrupy slime and grime. Broken glass and crushed illuminate soda cans where everywhere.

The grimy walls where covered with that garbage, and were sticky black. But one distinctly camouflaged hole had been drilled thorough the metal from the inside into the wall facing the ally, and the glass lens of a bounty hunters Identification Sensor glasses peered out and Jet Black, hunched over inside the closed dumpster, focused them in a wide surveillance of the darkened ally, his gloved cybernetic fingers slowly twisted the knob on the side of the glasses, focusing in on the scans.

Sitting off to the far side of the dumpster the piles of garbage bags and piles of stray trash shifted as Spike Spiegel- half sunken into a pit of the trash and the one who had just spoke up, squirmed in his position among the bags. The inside of the dumpster was about as big as a small closet, but considerably crammed due to the low and closed lid.

Spike was occupying himself by being careful to try and distinctively avoid touching any of the…furry stuff, but then looked at himself and groaned when he noticed a banana peal on the shoulder of his thick coat. Spike gingerly picked it up with the tips of his fingers and discarded it by throwing the peal without looking-too disgusted by his currently degrading position to care.

Spike shivered and tried to burry himself deeper inside his thick pink winter coat, and frowned inside the collar when he sunk lower into the bags. He tried to keep his breathing to a minimal, muffling the smell by inhaling into the coat collar but much to his disgust his nasal passages where getting use to the surroundings and adapting so that he was getting the rancid pungntness anyway.

The smell of this entire dumpster reminded him of a cow meat packing plant that was soaking in rotting maggot juice. And the already frigid air that had dipped bellow 30% the last time he checked sort of…froze the air into an almost physical smoke like inhalence. A smell that had permanently penetrated and soaked through his winter cloths and into his skin. As soon as he got back to the Bebop after collecting this guy, Spike was going to shower for the better part of his natural life! (Or maybe just nine months straight.)

He sighed miserably into his collar, hugging his arms around himself as he watched his frozen breath breathe out in a foggy hail. He could feel the soft pain in the back of his throat like an itch and the slow sniveling in his nose that was the eternal internal indication that he was getting another cold.

Great. Spike had just gotten over his last one two days ago, but apparently being out in the freezing weather was bringing it back full force.

"Is this ghost guy here yet?" Spike asked

dully, coughing as he leaned back against the grimy wall of the dumpster and yawned. One of his gloved hands pulled out from around him and dug into his coat pocket and fished around until he found a cigarette. He stuck it into his mouth and pulled out his lighter, lighting the tip and watched as gray smoke curled into the already rancid air.

Jet, who was so engrossed in concentrating all his attention onto the ally and scanning the ally with his glasses trying very hard to ignore the biting cold, gagged himself when the rotting banana hit the glasses. Pulling off the offensive grime, the former ISSP officer lifted the goggles off his eyes and glared at his lazy friend- the latter of whom was lounging against the dumpster wall on about thirteen garbage bags smoking with his eyes closed, arm slung behind his head in a pillow like he was napping, letting out little coughs of air around the cigarette.

"No." Jet said as he scanned. "And Puck was a sprite not a ghost."

"Whatever. It’s a stupid alias." Spike grumbled as he sneezed and the sighed, inhaling once more on the smoke. "Why they call him Puck anyways?" Spike asked for lack of anything better and bored to tears for something to do or talk about.

"Dunno. Probably because he works for the Council of Wizards and their made up of three members each named after famous wizards and sorcerers named Oberon, Merlin, and Gandolf. The entire Council/gang was headed by a named with the alias as King Arthur. This Arthur guy is the only one who had never been seen or heard of and some think he’s a computerized fabrication that the Council uses as a cover on the net. I think Marrow’s name is a theme name or something as a statement that he works for the gang. Marrow was working for them and Puck was a servant in Shakespeare’s play." Jet said shrugging.

"That’s stupid to." Spike said, sniffing. "The Council of Wizards sounds like a bunch of high school nerds who live with their mother and play Dungeons and Dragons in the basement all day."

"Probably." Jet agreed. "But The Stupid Nickname Gang name was probably already taken."

With that contributed to the conversation he was about to look back out when Spike flicked some burning ashes off to the side carelessly and Jet noticed.

"In case you didn’t notice, trash IS flammable." Jet said, his warning flying right over Spike’s green hair like the wind as Spike just shrugged indifferently and didn’t even bother opening his eyes as he inhaled on the cigarette.

Jet himself knew that when you needed a cigarette fix, it was damned near impossible to ignore it- but one also had to use a SEMBLANCE of reason when smoking. You didn’t throw a burning cigarette out the window into a dry forest and it wasn’t the best of idea’s to smoke while you where in a cramped and enclosed garbage can either.

"And since we’re like- in a metal garbage can with that flammable material, and if we DID get set on fire because of someone’s nicotine fixation, we’d end up dying like fried chicken in a broiler." Jet hinted a bit more strongly. (But it was difficult. Between the smell of garbage and smoke, he himself was dying for cigarette and this was not helping.)

Spike must have caught on- slightly anyway- because he opened his eyes and blinked questioningly. Jet motioned for him to stow the cigarette and he shrugged and plucked it out of his mouth- and instead of crushing it against the wall of the dumpster, Spike just blindly reached out and dropped the flaming cigarette onto a metal can that was off to his right, making Jet gasp when he saw that. (That very reason being because the metal can Spike had chosen to use as an ashtray- once you took the time to examine past the grimy film all over it- read it being as GASOLINE. A minor fact that had escaped Spike’s attention but not Jet’s.)

When the younger bounty hunter leaned back on his arm once more he noticed Jet staring at him and blinked.

"What?" He asked innocently sniffling.

Jet didn’t even bother to explain, (This was Spike, what was the point?) he just rolled his eyes and clicked the glasses back over his eyes and looked through the drilled hole to the ally.

Spike sighed and slouched back against the yucky bags as he sank even farther into the garbage. He and Jet had been inside this smelly pit for at least an hour waiting for Marrow to show up, and their bounty still had not. Spike had been pretty miserable waiting in the ally in the first place with the cold but apparently the gods had deemed to make this even worse because Jet had made them get into the dumpster to surprise attack Marrow. (They had been previously hidden behind the container, but it had become a choice of hiding inside that container with the tons of garbage or outside behind it with cold and hordes of rats. And since Jet apparently had issues with rats, the dumpster had won out in the end.)

"Why are we here?" Came his cool and smooth voice as Spike looked over the bags.

"Because you ruined the Bebop’s engines and without new heating coils we’re gonna be stuck here that’s why." Jet answered as he concentrated on the outside.

"Oh."

Jet smirked at the depressed tone in Spike’s voice but didn’t look over. Spike had only agreed to come out in this weather for such a low bounty because he had been the one to break the Bebop’s engines in the first place.

Spike had done that unintentionally when the younger cowboy had decided to cook some marshmallows, but the ISSP issued Heat Blasters always incinerated the candied food before he could eat it, so Spike had gotten the brilliant idea of roasting them over the heating coils. But he had accidentally dropped half the bag of marshmallows into the coils and just left them their to melt and drip a bunch of marshmallow goop all inside which gunked up the coils with gummy goo, and it had hardened over night into cement. Now the coils where not running at all and apparently without those, neither was the Bebop.

"You know, Edward helped me." Spike said dryly, breaking the silence once more. But just before he was going to continue his shifting of the blame, Spike sat up straighter and began to rapidly sneeze out coughs laborly. When he was finished he sank back down, sniveling miserably and let out another violent sneeze.

Jet looked over when he started coughing and frowned at the condition of his younger partner. Spike was hidden amongst the garbage and his coat, but a little bit of his face was sticking out and he could see his cheeks where a bright rosy- and that was not due to the cold because they stood out among his waning completion- and he had darkening circles under his eye. Even his hair kinda looked a little wilted.

Great. The traditional signs that Spike was getting another cold. (He had never seen a kid that contracted so many colds in his life. Spike was always getting them at least every few months. Jet had formulated a theory that Spike’s immune system would fail if he DIDN’T contract one at every turn from anyone that had one within a fifty mile radius.)

Jet groaned and looked back out the hole for a moment before sighing himself and lower the glasses for the final time.

"Well I guess he’s not coming. Shit." He swore as he shifted around. "I thought this tip was good." And Jet glared death rays at Spike who had let out a snort of laughter at that.

That so-called ‘good tip’ was from a man named Gillian Chase, and Spike had dragged his sorry ass back to the Bebop because he was on the bounty docket for 10,000 woulongs. Gillian had offered a trade of information for this deal and a higher bounty if they would let him go. (Which they didn’t anyway and just turned him in after they got the information. Incidentally old Gillian knew about the deal because his own brother- Walter Chase- who was the buyer in this little illegal market of technology.)

"Told ya."

"Shut. Up." Jet warned and turned to give the hole one last fleeting look, his mouth open to suggest that they just leave when a shadow of movement from outside filtered through that drill hole and was enough to catch his attention.

Frowning Jet leaned forward and clicked the glasses back into place as Spike groaned and clunked his head against the wall when he saw that, knowing now that his one last change at getting out of here was shot. But Jet ignored him and his fingers activated the sensors and he watched as the crosshairs pinpointed and focused in on the movement.

Off to the far side about a yard away from the dumpster one man had walked into the ally.

That guarded man was a tall man garbed in a dark blue cloak that hooded over his face, masking most of his features except for the pale skin of his lower face and angler features, the rest of the cloak trailed around him like water to the ground to scrap the tops of his black boots, masking the rest of his cloths. He was wearing black leather gloves, his right arm the only one visible from his cloak and that gloved hand was holding a briefcase that was cuffed to his wrist.

"Yes!" Jet hissed excitedly as he leaned forward with the sensors. He felt a slow grin creep across his face as the man turned ever so slightly and enough to capture a freeze frame of enough of his face that had fallen from under the hood and the image froze of him, a man with pale skin and glittering glittery green eyes filtering into the data banks of the glasses and began to run through the current warrants out on bounties for positive identification.

Jet watched as the man walked under the light of the doorway, and leaned against the door holding the briefcase, his head lowered like he was thinking.

Suddenly Spike’s- who had immediately crawled forward hurriedly through the garbage at the prospect of a fight- head slammed into Jet’s as they both got into a slight pushing match to see through the hole outside, scuffling through the trash. Spike- despite his waning illness- managed to win out and gleefully shoved Jet aside to peer out through that drilled hole.

"That Marrow?" Spike asked as he scrutinized the scene, his face up close to the wall as he peered through the hole.

Jet- who had fallen back against more garbage bags- adjusted the glasses indignantly but gasped when the identification came up.

Identified as Oberon- member of the Wizard Council and one of the highest-ranking bounties on the docket.

"Holy shit!" He exclaimed. "Hey. That’s-" Jet began in shock, but Spike waved at him to be quiet.

From the mouth of the ally way, a man had walked around the corner, melting out of the shadows. He was tall, wearing a dark brown overcoat with a briefcase in his left hand. With blue-slicked back hair and red eyes and a slightly thinning face that had a cybernetic eyepiece over one of his eyes, he matched the description of Willis a.k.a. Puck. Puck was walking through the darkened ally with his head down, scraping past the trash walking towards their position.

"Sprite boy just made his round the world appearance." Spike informed him as he watched.

"Did you really think you would just be able to run away?" His water smooth voice asked, making Puck jerked his head up in shock at the familiarity of it. The former council member gasped and backed up a little as Oberon straightened up from the door of the run down store and finally raised his head to reveal his glittery red eyes that sparkled like rubies.

Puck gasped and quickly moved the case he held in his hand behind him- making Oberon raise an eyebrow.

So he dose have it. It’s in his briefcase.

"You took away our King." Oberon told him coolly. The wizard stepped down from the stoup of the doorway and walked past a wary Puck to stop directly in front of the Garbage dumpster. "And you stole away his only change to live once more."

Puck’s eyes narrowed and he tensed. The bounty cast a quick look around the cramped ally and knew- while he couldn’t see them- that Oberon hadn’t come in here alone. His ‘associates’ where hidden around here somewhere.

He pressed himself up against the wall as Oberon passed by him, leaning against the briefcase he held that contained the Recorder. He couldn’t allow the Council to get his creation and re-animate Arthur. Willis didn’t want that line of life and death crossed and nor did Arthur.

But the Council was going to do everything in their power to inaugurate him back once more. And Puck knew that he was going to die here. He had been so careful!

"What did you do with Chase?" Puck asked, tilting his head inquiringly as he leaned against the crumbling walls. "Did he ever exist?"

"Dose it matter?" Oberon asked as he set the case containing Arthur onto the dumpster. He turned around, leaning back against the grimy can and tilted his own head.

"You’re going to die. Give me the recorder." Oberon told him bluntly.

Puck jerked around when he heard the distinct clicks of weapons and stun around to the chain link fence seeing two men- Silver and O’Neil- holding guns that where pointed at him.

Spike looked to Jet and the older cowboy slowly mouthed something while pointing towards the wall where Oberon was.

He’s worth more.

Then Jet motioned to himself.

Spike nodded, understanding without needing any details. Puck may have been worth a lot, but if cloak man was worth more then he was top priority. Jet would capture that man, and Spike would take out Puck, both of them bringing down the other two goons with guns.

Spike silently motioned made a punching gesture with his hands upward towards the lid. Jet caught on and nodded, pulling the glasses off his eyes, sliding them back into his pocket and de-holstering his gun. They could take on all of these guys. It was just a matter of getting the upper hand in the first few seconds.

They both crouched down low, scooting deeper into the garbage, Spike coiling strength into his legs, and he tensed as Jet held up his cybernetic hand. Five fingers.

Four.

Three.

Walter was a low life drug dealer who had traded his ID for the new one of Gillian with the Council so they could use his identity for the trade before the original exchange between Walter and Puck could go down, so they could have the advantage and no back-traces that Puck made on him could be linked to them since they where still using Walter’s name on the Net.

Oberon didn’t expect or foresee the fact that Gillian would have told bounty hunters about the deal in exchange for a free walk.

"Give me the Recorder." Oberon repeated quietly.

BAM!

No more numbers.

Without warning the lid to the garbage dumpster was violently thrown open as Spike had put all his strength behind the attack, and punched it upward- the motion of the lid slamming into Oberon who was still leaning against the can, sending the wizard careening forward for fall down to the ground. Puck took off instantly, seeing his escape as he ran towards the mouth of the ally, hugging the briefcase he held. He managed to get away, but his foot slipped in a spot of slim and with a cry he crashed down to the ground, his foot now tangled in a mess of plastic and duct tape from a faded box.

Jet- who instantly stood up the moment Spike punched the lid open- whirled around and fired his gun at Silver and the other MIB.

Silver had the advantage of being more experienced in combat apparently because as soon as Oberon pitched forward he dived to the side of the fence, rolling behind a metal barrel near the stoup.

The other guy wasn’t so fortunate because Jet’s bullet slammed into his hand, knocking the gun from his grip and blood splattered everywhere as he fell backward screaming in pain.

Before Jet could turn to un-arm Silver, Spike leaped out of the dumpster for Puck when a bullet whizzed by the younger Cowboy’s arm, whispering near his ear and Jet crashed back down into the dumpster swearing as another hail of bullets began to fire around him, slamming into the crumbling wall of Billy’s Electronic store, raining down bits of brick and cement. Silver- who was firing around the can he was using as cover- continued to fire his gun at the dumpster, the bullets denting and embedding into the metal.

"Spike! Get Oberon!" Jet roared over the gunfire as he re-loaded his weapon.

The wizard was groaning slightly, his hand outstretched and steadying himself as he pushed himself up but Spike continued his careening fall through the air from the can- flipped past the bullets being exchanged and landed Oberon’s back, shoving his face and body into the dirty ground once more with a loud "OAF!" from Oberon.

Spike reached down and grabbed onto his cloak and dragged a dazed Oberon to his feet. He raced across the ally way the other wall, not even bothering with the MIB man lying there crying in a pool of blood, dragging him and slammed him into the bricks. Oberon roared angrily and tried to swing his fist at him, but Spike easily dodged it and grabbed his fist, spinning him around and slamming him chest first against the wall, pining his arm.

Spike reached out and grabbed onto a protruding piece of wire from the fence and pulled on it, wrapping it around Oberon quickly as he ran behind him just as the wizard spun around to try once more to hit him, and Spike used that by ducking once more to the side, running back around, jerking upright with the wire and spinning Oberon’s arm into a cocoon of wire, binding him down. Spike jerked so hard on the wire to tie him down that the briefcase that was cuffed to his wrist had gotten in the way and it snapped off, the case crashing to the ground in a puddle of water.

Spike finished tying him down and jumped back just as Oberon roared once more and tried to hit at him blindly. He smirked at him, reaching into his coat and pulling out a cigarette, (Finally!) and his lighter, lighting up the smoke as he overlooked his handy work.

"Life’s a little tougher outside the game board eh, Mr. Wizard?" Spike dryly as he blew a gently caress of smoke into the air.

"Bastard!" Oberon spat at him venomously. "You don’t know what you’ve done!"

"Uh, caught you?" Spike asked, giving him a confused look. Oberon screamed at him enraged and jerked against his binds with such force Spike was surprised he didn’t rip himself into pieces.

Spike reared his hand back and punched Oberon square in the jaw, knocking his head back to crack against the brick, and he slumped forward unconscious. Spike leaned back once more, inhaling onto the smoke as he nodded- satisfied with his handy work.

His moment of smoking solitude was short lived however when the hail of bullets that where being exchanged through all this, turned and three bullets slammed into the wall very near Spike’s and Oberon’s head.

"Whoa!" Spike yelled, whirling around, and twisting just as another bullet fired. Silver had changed targets from Jet, to Spike and when the younger bounty hunter dived out of the way, his gun trailed after him.

Spike crashed onto the gross ground- still smoking- rolling in the trash and dirt as the bullets ate away in the water and cement very near him. But the ally was only so big, and he was already near the linked fence, and Spike rolled- sitting up and crashing into the fence. As he straightened up from his sitting position against the wall, Silver ducked around the corner of the barrel once more and aimed at Spike.

"See you space cowboy." Silver smirked, and Spike’s eyes widened when he saw how close they where. (Only about a yard apart.) He tried to dive out of the way back where he came from but they where just to close, and Silver’s finger pulled the trigger, the bullet flying directly at him.

Luckily Spike’s dive pulled him out of the way so that the bullet didn’t slam into his brain, but he still couldn’t move fast enough to avoid the trajectory and he cried out a grunt of pain as he felt a fiery explosion explode in his shoulder. Hot blood splattered across the wall as the bullet exited his shoulder and Spike slammed into the ground rolling on some broken glass, the wound throwing off his movements.

Crap. This on top of a cold. Spike thought rolling his eyes as he sniveled. Just what I need!

Jet was working on finding another round to re-load into his weapon, (And not finding it either only one stray bullet in his pocket since he forgot Spike was holding all the ammunition in his inner coat pocket.) when he heard Spike’s yell of pain. He jerked upright and looked over the lip of the can to see him lying on the ground, holding his shoulder that was flowing blood. Silver was aiming once more to get a more clean shot of his temple as Spike struggled to get moving again. Spike managed to work his gun out of his coat and he blindly fired at Silver, making him draw back behind the canister. But the bodyguard still had the upper hand because Spike was out and wounded, exposed in the open and he was hidden and unharmed.

"Shit!" Jet swore. He had no time, and only one bullet. Silver was still sheltered by the barrel and he might have been a good shot but bullets couldn’t make round the corner turns to hit their targets.

As his eyes frantically roamed the garbage can as if it held a solution, wincing when he heard Spike continue firing randomly. He only had about nine more shots left and Jet couldn’t find anything to help with…

Suddenly Jet’s eyes fell onto where Spike had been sitting. He blinked when he could make out that GASOLINE can that Spike had dropped his still lit cigarette on.

Five shots.

Jet instantly dived across the dumpster, wading past the trash and bags that slowed him down a bit.

Three shots.

Jet’s flesh hand grabbed onto the GASOLINE can, and his finger on the cigarette before it rolled. When he jerked back, to his relief the can was still half way full.

One shot.

Empty.

Spike groaned when he heard the distinct clicking of an empty chamber in his weapon and threw it away from him annoyed. He risked looking over his shoulder and saw Silver had come around the barrel and leveled the gun muzzle at him.

His finger tightened around the trigger as Spike tensed up, preparing himself for some more futile rolling, (Where the hell was Jet?!) when all the sudden something flew over his head that shadowed over him and distracted him for a moment. Blinking Spike looked up to see a can flying through the air and he looked over at the dumpster to see Jet jerk upright and fire his own weapon and the one bullet he had left.

Silver jerked back around, angry over the distraction from killing SOMETHING when the can flew past his field of vision, trailing thick red liquid from the bullet hole that had been shot through it. The can clattered and landed off about a few feet from him, and before Silver could register what was happening- Jet flicked the cigarette out the side of the dumpster.

Jet didn’t even bother waiting for it to ignite. He jumped out the dumpster and landed on the cement, running over to Spike. The cigarette landed on the stream that had dripped out in the air, and with a loud WOOSH ignited the gasoline, and ran along the liquid faster then the eye could see, catching on stray paper and cardboard, engulfing that section of the ally in flames.

Silver cried out in shock as the flames that trailed on the gasoline and exploded in his face all around him where it had trailed and fallen from. Next to him beer bottles and cans exploded, firing glass shrapnel at him and trapping him behind that iron hot barrel.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Silver screamed as the flames crowed him.

Jet skidded to a stop next to Spike who was sitting up, still holding his shoulder that was bleeding profusely. He knelt down next to his younger partner.

"You okay-" He asked. Spike nodded and blinked looking over Jet’s shoulder. When the older bounty hunter turned to see what see what he was looking at he saw that Puck was still struggling to get his foot free from its binds.

Spike grabbed onto Jet’s shoulders and used him as a boost to climb to his feet.

"I’m fine." He assured him, sounding strained from pain, but he took off down the ally anyway.

"You get Oberon this time! I’ll get Puck!" He called to a startled Jet.

Jet blinked and looked over at Oberon who was glowing a soft orange from the fire his form slumped over and hung from his binds. He cast one last look over at Spike and shrugged climbing back to his feet going over to Oberon.

Spike ran down the ally way, huffing out clouds of frost from his mouth from the exertion on his shoulder, his hand tightly clamped over the strangely cold oozing blood. His wound was burning in sheer agony but he had had worse and could handle it just fine for a few more minutes. He could feel the first streams of heat from the blazing inferno behind him, but his body was loosing blood so his arm felt icy cold. He gritted his teeth and ran past the blur of night, broken down buildings, and crumbling bricks as he neared a struggling Willis.

Feeling his heart pounding with desperation, Puck screamed at his leg and ripped at the wrapping, crying with relief when the damned bubble wrap gave way and un-twisted from his ankle.

Jerking his head up as he twisted around to scramble to his feet he gasped when he saw Spike running full speed at him but a few precious feet away from him, frighteningly fast for someone who was wounded. He rolled on his stomach and pushed off with his hands, narrowly escaping Spike’s hand that swiped at his jacket.

He heard the bounty hunter swore and he twisted to the right, feeling the closely shadowed presence of the man, and Puck crashed onto his briefcase, clawing it up as he scrambled about and managed to get to his feet steadily, plowing ahead to the exit. Just as he turned to corner, racing past the broken windows and three yards away from that cursed death hell he had escaped from, freedom narrowly away- a loud screaming of tires caught his attention and Puck skidded to a stop, freezing under the street light as he stared with horror across the street in the ally across the building where car lights where steadily getting brighter. The black car was coming through that ally towards where he was.

It was the back up for Oberon and his ‘Associates.’

"No." He whispered as he stared at the approaching lights, feeling a heavy weight press down on his chest. The feeling of failure. Of failing a good friend and fear for his own approaching death.

He wasn’t getting out of this.

The Council would get the Recorder he had created, and re-animate Arthur. Everything he had escaped for was wasted in the end.

Puck felt tears sting in his eyes as he waited there, hugging the case shaking just as Spike rounded the corner.

Spike growled annoyed as he slid around the corner where the slippery little fellow managed to get away, where he had been running towards the exit of the ally. Wasting no time he chased after him, ignoring but wincing at the pain in his shoulder as he reached into his coat and pulled out his second weapon, re-loading a clip into it.

Barley waiting for himself to stop, the gun snapped out in his hand, his finger easily sliding around the loop and tightened on the trigger as he slid to a stop at the exit and pointed it at Puck who had froze under the streetlights, car lights from in front of him illuminating his face.

Puck froze when Spike’s cool voice came from behind him.

"Robin Goodfellow could make it around the world in less then a hour." Spike commented; his weapon trained at Puck’s head. "I don’t think you’re quiet that fast."

Puck stood there, blinking and concentrating. A new idea had rooted in his brain as the Cowboy started talking. He was recalling the fight in the ally that had occurred but not a few moment ago, remembering how Spike had handled himself. He was pretty damn slick and maybe…

Puck closed his eyes. This was a bad idea. A stupid on in fact and very dangerous. Not to mention very very desperate. But he had no choice.

Spike waited for Puck to say something, make a move or do something. But the man just stood there, the lights from the car getting brighter as it approached and he just stood.

Spike started to walk forward but suddenly Willis voice spoke up, so softly Spike had to strain to hear him.

"Once upon a time there was a King." Puck said quietly, not looking at anything but that light. "He was a powerful King and commanded a Council of sorcerers."

Spike stopped walking and stared at Puck.

"What?" He asked confused. What the hell was he talking about? He was going to arrest him and take him in and he was telling him a story!

What the hell was going on here?

"Then one day, that King died." Puck said and turned around to look at Spike. He blinked in surprise at the lifelessness of those eyes that stared at him. They where like a corpse. With no light or life in them at all.

The eyes of a man that had just given up completely.

Puck was glowing slightly in the approaching light and really DID resemble a sprite at that moment as the case he held slid into his right hand and to his side as he walked towards Spike. It was so strange that he almost backed up, but the weight of the gun in his hand reminded him he had the upper hand in this situation, and pointed it directly at the mans chest in a silent warning.

"But that Council didn’t want their King to die, so they cast a spell and put his soul in a doll." Puck explained, his left hand sliding into his pocket. His gloved fingers felt the thin hardened sides of the black tasser and he looked at the bounty hunter sadly.

"But the King didn’t want to be a doll. So the Council decided to make him into a living person again. But in order to do that they needed a special talisman that would give the King a body, but in order to do that they needed to get that talisman from a Knight."

"What are you talking about?" Spike demanded annoyed. He was finding it hard to center the weapon with his shoulder screaming in pain, and he was finding this guy rather strange.

"You." Puck said, his left hand pulling out of his pocket and concealing his own stun gun. "The Knight they need to get the talisman back from is you."

Then he swung his fist.

Spike was prepared for a punch and easily dogged it, twisting around to grab onto Puck’s hand and twist his arm around in an echo of what he had done to Oberon. But the minute he turned, his hand colliding with Puck’s, his left palm intercepted the metal teeth of the stun gun and he cried out in shock as a third degree electric jolt pierced through his skin and system, horribly sending his nerves screaming in pain and confusion, his entire mind going white. His shoulder- already throbbing- exploded the pain all over his body but it was strange. Like he could see the pain on the horizon but he was just a spectator to the it and never really registering it.

Spike could only let out a grunt of shock, feeling the numbing sensation rush through him and before he knew what happened, his mind blitzed and his body lost control. He pitched forward, the gun clattering out of his hand and onto the cement as he fell forward, gasping as he tried to get his body to remember to breath. He was only vaguely aware of the arms that caught him, but it was like a shadow and he slumped forward- his body tingling like electric jolts as his system tried to re-assert itself. His mind was just white and no longer registering or remembering anything.

Puck caught Spike as he collapsed, and looked around hurriedly. The car was stuck still and he had little time.

Acting quickly, he dragged Spike over the sidewalk and carefully leaned his prone form up against the broken down building he was standing in front of. Propping Spike upright until he was sitting, slightly slumped over, Puck turned back around and lifted the briefcase up- quickly typing in the code to the locks.

The locks popped open once the code was accepted, and he carefully lifted the lid.

Resting inside the case, nestled within the cushioned protection, the glass lid reflected the Recorder. It’s metal wire frame fitted to fit around a forehead, blue fiberglass between the wires that beeped with technological life, and near the section where the temples would be, the fiberglass rounded into circles where two needles ejected out of. From those prongs, yellow fiber optic eyeglass extended, rounding down over the eyes like bubbles, that glass that extended down slid back and not active. Not yet.

Puck carefully opened the glass casing, gently removing the device. His fingers slid around the band, de-pressing the program and activating the entire thing.

He turned his attention back to Spike, and gently lifted his limp head, holding his chin and positioning the device that fit perfectly around his forehead. Spike shifted, groaning- his control over his nerves and mind starting to come back slowly.

And Puck wasted no time.

He activated the Recorder.

As soon as he did, the blue glass lit up glowing softly, and the wires clamped down around Spike’s head. The yellow glass ejected, sliding over his eyes. And from the two ports near his temples, two long needles ejected from them and slid neatly into Spike’s skull. They slid inside his brain. going through bone and skull like it wasn’t event here. The thin needles where visible through the eyepieces.

And the program fully activated.

Satisfied that the Recorder could handle the rest of the activation into his mind, Puck quickly grabbed Spike’s fallen gun and spun around.

The car had slid around in front of them, sliding to a stop with a scream. Three more ‘Associates’ jumped out of the car but instantly dived to the side as Puck fired off the gun in their direction.

Puck gave the bounty hunter one last look and hoped that the Recorder would be safe. Whirling around and firing rapidly at the men, Puck took off down the street to draw their attention away from Spike.

And left him there half conscious, with the unknown programmed device now thoroughly embedded inside his brain.

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The blue glass around his head began to dim, still glowing softly. The needles inside him brain began to re-wire and re-work it’s programming to adjust to his mind.

Inside his brain, his nerves screamed in protest to the invasion of organic veins being grown as they stretched very slowly across the cerebral cortex. However the true veins where now grown yet, the needles simply outlaying and scanning- mapping to the layout of his organic biology. The needles spread out wiring around his brain, laying out the network for the original organic ones that would soon begin to grow as the program evolved.

And Spike slowly began to re-gain consciousness, groaning in pain as his mind throbbed with the intrusion of fiery wires grew inside of him. He was only aware of the pain- not his cold surroundings, and his body automatically grabbed onto the windowsill, his fingers grinding into the broken glass as he pulled himself upright, gasping from the electric invasion. He swayed, opening his eyes a little bit- and groaned at the brightness of the night. Automatically the glass around his eyes darkened to almost black, giving his eyes shelter.

Spike blurrily, sub-consciously- responded to old memories of getting help- and he stumbled at bit, holding onto the wall as he shakily headed towards the ally where Jet was.

And the program continued to grow as the Recorder worked it’s propose.

Jet hardly noticed the Wizards silent hate radiating from him even in sleep as he dragged the other nameless and whimpering MIB suite across the ally from where he had previously been lying in his blood. Jet sat the sniffling man down onto a pile of blackened cardboard and cuffed his wrists and ignored his cry of pain as he handled his wounded hand.

"Stop whining." Jet said to the man as he looked at him pathetically. "You’re a criminal. You where going to get hurt eventually, you’re time just came today."

With that he turned back around, clapping the soot off his hands and began to head towards the dumpster where he had dropped his COM device, when he passed by a pile of ashes, and his booth swift through them, connecting with something hard.

Jet looked down, blinking- surprised anything had survived the burning fire. Even the glass had been shattered in the fire due to the heat.

Kicking slightly at the ashes, a piece of shinny metal glittered through the black soot and he bent down, wiping away the burnt paper and cardboard, pulling a briefcase free of melted plastic that was stuck to it.

Straightening up, he found that the metal was the broken chain from the handcuffs from Oberon. It had to have been pretty important to be so secured to him.

"Huh." Jet commented, shaking the case a bit. The case was heavy, whatever was inside thumping around lightly in the secure inside. When Jet raised the case up to look at the sturdiness of the locks, they where still bonded firmly in place.

CA-CLATTERCRASH!

Jet looked up and over his shoulder when the clattering sounds of trash being tipped over, and saw at the entrance of the ally- the hunched over form of Spike holding onto the wall, stumbling erratically from colliding with a pile of garbage piled on metal trash cans with boxes on to as he walked, head bent down so far his chin almost was touching his chest.

Jet blinked in surprise at how unsteady his friend looked, wondering if he had been hurt worse then originally he let on.

"Uh, where’s Puck?" He called back to him, for lack of anything better.

Spike crashed against the wall at the sudden sounds of voices, his mind echoing it horribly, leaching out each word so badly it sounded like shrieking. He gripped the crumply wall, and looked up wincingly, a tiny voice inside of him wondering what or where he was. But his groggy mind was to…jumbled to think clearly, and all he was seeing was blurry forms ahead in the darkness.

The sudden onslaught of whatever device was binding itself inside his skull- light up brightly as the pressure in his mind threatened to explode.

"AH!" He yelled, grabbing onto his head- his hands hitting the device- (What the hell is this thing?) and he stumbled crashing backward against the wall once more.

Jet jumped when he fell down and instantly dropped the case to run across the ally. Sliding to a stop in front of Spike he knelt down, gripping his shoulders and shaking him slightly- his downward turned head bobbing like a dolls.

"Spike?" Jet asked. "Hey what’s wrong-"

Spike managed to lift his head, his eyes winced so tight that they where almost shut completely and frowned as he tried to make out the blurry thing in front of him.

As soon as he did Jet stopped talking and stared. Spike had some sort of…glasses around his eyes, but the yellow lenses extended down from the side of a band that was around his forehead. They where spaced away from his head enough to see that there where two glass ports near his temples, and needles where inserted into his skin- undoubtly into his skull- and blood was leaching down the side of his face from where they where embedded.

The device was also glowing from the glass almost internally.

"What the hell!" Jet exclaimed as he stared at whatever was now attached to Spike’s head. When he looked at the eye lenses that where almost black, they lightened to dark yellow under the darkness of the ally to reveal Spike’s slightly discolored eyes, staring around disorderedly.

What the hell happened to him?

"What happened to you?" Jet asked confused but Spike obviously was in no condition to answer because he just stared past him.

"Aw man!" Jet groaned, as he looked back at Oberon and his other bound Associate. This was not good. Whatever this weird device was, it was obvious that Spike now needed help. But with him incapacitated, there was only one of them now and Jet could only take one back to the ship without help.

Money for new coils, or help his friend who got into trouble like this at every turn.

Sometimes Jet thought that friendship was seriously overrated. (But then again, Spike DID need help so…)

Jet sighed, turning around to face the bounties. Well, he would leave them tied there and come back for them once he brought Spike back to the Bebop. If they got free…well…then they got free.

As a after through, Jet looked back then propped Spike back up against the wall so he would be conformable then climbed to his feet, walking back to where he had set the brief case down.

"Hey!" The MIB man cried out when Jet picked up the case and started to walk away. Jet paused and looked back. "T-that’s not yours! It belongs to the Council!" He said, shrinking back at Jets glare.

"Well now it’s mine." Jet told him, and walked away from the sputtering lackey.

That lackey- named O’Neil- watched in disbelief as Jet walked away with the case that contained their King. The bounty hunter helped Spike stand up and slung his arm over his shoulder, half dragging him away from the scene.

As he did, he noticed something glowing around Spike’s head and his mouth dropped open as he stared.

The Recorder!

Those two bounty hunters had their King AND the Recorder!

"Oh no." O’Neil whispered, and looked at an unconscious Oberon, then back at the retreating hunters as they rounded the corner.

| Opening Theme TANK begins to play.|

The room was located in an observatory, the large glass dome ceiling revealing the night sky and stars that twinkled like glitter in it. All around the bottom level the walls where made of glass to overlook the broken city and more of the view of the sky.

A man wearing a dark black robe and dark blue cape stood on the edge of the platform of the catwalk that ran along the second story of the observatory that overlooked the bottom of the observatory, his hood concealing his face.

Bellow him stood a battered looking O’Neil, who’s clothing was torn and bloody, his skin coated lightly black with soot and ashes. He was holding his bloody hand that was still leaching blood down to puddle on the ground and he was trembling so violently his teeth where chatter and that was not due to the cold- but to his fear.

Behind him stood Oberon- Second Council member to the Wizards. His own cloak was covered in black sooth was well, and he had tears in his cloak from where he had torn free from the wire binds. His head was bent as always, but a small trickle of blood was dripping down his chin from the large welling bruise where Spike had knocked him unconscious.

Merlin- standing over them as he stared down at them coldly- held his stance with his hand on his hip.

"What happened?" Came a voice from bellow, hidden amongst the shadows near the wall as the third and final member of the Council- a unseen man named Gandolf- asked gruffly as his shoes clicked on the floor, circling around them like pray.

"B-b-bounty hunters s-surprised us." O’Neil stuttered frightened as he looked up at Merlin pleadingly. "T-They took King Arthur."

"You did nothing to stop them?" The Wizard in the shadows whispered to the terrified man coyly.

"I-I couldn’t! They tied me up and-" O’Neil started to cry desperately.

"The Recorder?" Gandolf interrupted as he slowly melted from the shadows of the wall to appear in the pale beams of the moonlight glowing down from the windows above. His eyes where like Oberon’s- related in their supernatural appearance- glowing white pupils like a wolf’s glared out at him, making him appear like the lethal and graceful animal those eyes so resembled.

O’Neil felt his heart freeze in terror and he tried to think of something. He knew that that other Bounty hunter (What did that tall man call him?) Spike (!) now possessed it and the program and device was now embedded inside his brain instead of the Council’s own chosen one. But they also possessed Arthur now, and that meant he was with them.

"One of the Cowboy’s- I believe his name was Spike. Puck input the device onto his head. He’s partners with the other one that took Arthur’s case!" O’Neil whispered.

There was nothing said by either member of the Council as they pondered this development. From above the ‘Associate’ could see Lord Merlin slowly walk along the catwalk, still masked in the shadows as his boots quietly and unnervingly clomped onto the metal ramp, never saying a word as he watched over the precession. The cool darkness hid him well, and he didn’t say anything as Merlin turned away from his Council members and the pathetic shell O’Neil, turning to look around the large window of domes, elbow in hand, his blue-gloved fingers pressed against his lips as he watched. Merlin could almost see the flaming ash of the fire sprinkling around in the air that soared. Or maybe that was just the red-hot rage building up quietly inside of him. But he was head Lord of The Council of Wizards and he would never lose his control over his emotions.

Even in a horribly desperate situation this had become.

He didn’t turn as Gandolf slowly, stalking and the third Council Wizard stopped in front of O’Neil, leaning in so close to the terrified man his face was mere inches from his own. O’Neil was absolutely terrified- his heart pounding so loud he was sure it was echoing through out the entire empty place as the glowing wolf eyes seemingly saw past him into his own soul.

"I. Repeat." Gandolf said softly, his quiet voice that held not threat to it more frightening then any demon could ever become. "Why. Didn’t. You. Stop. Them?" He breathed softly.

O’Neil was near hysterical tears as he tried to make himself to back up, but instinctively did so a few steps. His hand was throbbing in pain but he raised it up as if to ward off the demonic Wizard. He could have sworn he saw Gandolf’s eyes flare almost pleasurably at the sight of the dripping dark red liquid, and he smiled, baring his teeth slightly.

O’Neil had never been so frightened.

But he didn’t have to worry about it for long.

For as soon as he backed up, he accidentally bumped into Oberon- who had remained steadily silent, his anger and rage building as much, if not more strongly then Merlin’s and he was no where near as in control as the high commander.

With a cry of utter hatred and rage, Oberon screamed at O’Neil and shoved him back forward- pulling a gun out of his cloak- the weapon snapping out into his hand.

Gandolf jerked his head to the side, the crack of the bullet leaving the chamber giving him a slight warning and O’Neil’s brain and burning hot blood splattered all over his chest and the side of his face as that same bullet exploded from the associates nose.

The lifeless body of O’Neil fell forward to splatter onto the hard ground in a thick puddle of blood that had dripped from his hand, now to pool in an ocean from his head.

Gandolf’s face remained turned away, his left side of his profile now covered in blood- but it didn’t bother him. For a moment he remained that way, feeling the blood all over him cooling and he turned to look at the spot where the now dead associate once stood, now leaving only Oberon, frozen, still in anger, the gun tip hissing with smoke lightly.

Merlin- who remained where he was still during the shot- turned back around after a moment to see Oberon let out another scream and whirl around, throwing the weapon as hard as he could at one of the observatory windows.

The metal gun hit the glass and it shattered the entire frame and glass, raining down glittery shards of the window like stars falling from the sky. Oberon whirled around panting as he glared both of his fellow Council members.

"This will work to our advantage." Merlin spoke up finally, his voice or emotion or expression not changing at all as he walked towards the end of the catwalk.

"How!" Oberon snapped, anger and self-disgust evident on his features as he whirled back around and stalked over to the broken window, his boots crunching on the tiny blasted pieces of glass as he snapped up his gun once more from the ledge.

"We have lost BOTH of our most precious cargo and we have no idea who the hell any of these men were!" Oberon roared, his fingers expertly clicking the wasted cartridges out of the chamber to clatter to the floor as he snapped it back to set-to-fire. Still feeling the burning of self-humiliation at the way he handled everything, Oberon slid the gun back into the hidden holster in his cloak, and grabbed onto the sill, running his hand through his raven black hair. "The one we chose to be Arthur was going to be Landry, NOT some low life bounty hunter scum!" He said softly, looking out over the ruins of the city.

"Merlin is correct this can work to our advantage." Gandolf said as he reached into his bloody cape/cloak with blood stained gloves and removed a white cloth. The youngest Wizard un-sympathetically dabbed at the blood that smeared his face carefully, staining the cloth red and pulpy with the brain and bone that had hit him. He simply discarded his cape that was covered in pieces of O’Neil’s head and face and flesh, walking past the lifeless corps on the floor marinating in it’s own fluids and dropped the cape onto it like a laundry hamper and with about as much thought or care.

He walked towards the table that was set up on the far wall as he spoke.

"If this fellow- ah, what was his name?"

"Spike." Oberon hissed in hatred. He never hated anyone so much in his life. That over confidant cowboy idiot made a complete fool out of him and ruined EVERYTHING!

"Right then. If this Spike can handle battle and out match even you Oberon then perhaps he is a more worthy choice for Arthur’s host after all." Gandolf said, stopping at the table where a shutdown computer was. He activated it, and began to type on the Net.

"You can not be serious!" Oberon cried outraged as he spun around to stare incredulously at the youngest Council member.

"I am very serious." Gandolf said not at all put off by his fellow brothers behavior.

"What choice do we have?" Merlin asked as he descended the stairs from the catwalk. Both Wizards turned to see their High Lord step down from the last stair and look at them both through his dark hood. "The Recorder was only meant to be used once. We have no choice. Spike is now the chosen one for Arthur."

Oberon remained rooted to where he was in utter hatred but desperately tried to keep his mouth shut. They where right and they had no choice but his own personal contempt of the Cowboy was difficult to ignore. He was the one who had wanted to kill him the first chance he got, but now as Arthur, he could not.

"You are feeling humiliated and embarrassed because you where foiled by this man." Merlin told him quietly, and brutally blunt. "But he now posses The Recorder inside his mind and he is now the chosen one for Arthur."

"You forget." Oberon hissed at him. "He may posses The Recorder but they ALSO have Arthur." He snarled.

"And whose fault is that?" Merlin inquired, making Oberon face fault and back up a step like he had been slapped in the face. "But where the original foundation for our plans was destroyed and new one is weaving and building itself as we speak, one that may stand and function better then before. Arthur is fully self-aware and capable. When and if he sees a chance to become Spike, then he will. If not in the meantime we shall attempt to locate these bounty hunters and take back what was and is now still ours." Merlin informed him.

Oberon didn’t say anything as he tried to control his emotions and breathing and he glared over at Gandolf who was working on the computer.

Intellectually he knew Merlin was right, and his duty to their King overrode all.

"He was shot in the ally." Oberon told him tersely. "There was to much blood to come from O’Neil and Silver, and the other bounty hunter was unharmed as was Puck. Send a team out to get a sample of the blood; do a DNA search and find his file. Discover what ship he is registered on and find the damned ship!" He snapped the last of the instructions as he turned away and stalked off past Merlin.

"Gee. Would have never thought of that." Gandolf commented sarcastically- his contempt for Oberon radiating in his tone. Oberon’s’ face flushed and he Gandolf exchanged heated glares.

VERY slowly, Oberon walked towards the youngest Wizard. Gandolf raised an eyebrow but didn’t back down as he held down, glaring at Oberon as he advanced a few inches from him and towered over him darkly.

Carefully, Oberon’s lather gloved hand reached up and his index finger trailed along in the slick blood along his cheek, caressing his skin. He held it out in front of Gandolf’s wolf eyes, his bloody glove glowing in the moonlight and computer screen light.

"Careful." He warned quietly, and Gandolf smirked at him.

"Extended." Was all he said.

Oberon glowered down and spun back around, his cloak whirling around him like the wind as he stalked past Merlin towards the doorway exit.

Merlin watched the scene with cool red-eyes as he shook his head and frowned. This was getting out of hand. The Council was beginning to go at war with one another.

The Red Dragons where amongst the most powerful syndicates in the galaxy because they ran like a mafia. But the Council of Wizards ran like a court, and their King had passed. In a court leadership and power and control was passed onto a Prince but Arthur had no appointed Prince.

That left the position open to anyone power-hungry enough to kill for it.

Merlin watched as Gandolf continued to work on the computer and closed his eyes.

"God save the King." His lips whispered.

Somewhere inside his mind he was aware that whatever device was embedded on his head, it was recording everything around and inside him, all the information recording and playing inside his brain. He could literally SEE himself lying on the couch of the Bebop in the reflection of the fans light bulb. Reflecting the image of a guy who looked awful, his shirt off and his shoulder and arm bandaged tightly, with a light staining of blood still, his wan completion pale under the artificial light. The cool breeze of that fan was blowing over his skin gently, and if he stretched his ‘Vision’ he could see the eternal T.V. that was always on the table on, Edward and Ein sitting on the table, her face inches from the screen.

Seeing himself this way was like looking through a camera lens with no physical body.

Spike wondered inside his mind if this was what being in a coma felt like. He wanted to move, at least wake up but a when he turned around a bright data barrier inside his brain was preventing the command from fully being accepted.

So Spike mentally pushed. The hell he was just going to sit there inside his brain like computer file with no will power. Inside his mind he fought and shoved as hard as he could mentally against that light, feeling burning tingling inside his brain and it almost hurt- but it was that same feeling of pain when the device was put on- the knowing that he was aware of it, but the pain simply tinged the edges of his mind, as if the Novocain of a cavity where slightly warring off, tingling with pain but not actually hurting.

Pushing.

Pushing.

Burning. Pain.

Pushing.

/ARG! / He cried out in his dreams and gave one last shove against the solid light, feeling it give away like a crumbling wall, pushing a big enough hole into it that allowed him to fall through it unintentionally, into darkness.

Falling.

Falling.

Watching in the bulb as his reflection came nearer and nearer as he fell towards himself.

Contact.

Spike felt his consciousness crash headfirst into awareness and suddenly his vision spectrum switched from a camera back to his own eyes as they snapped open.

When his eyes opened to break into the light of the Bebop- thrown instantly into a pit of darkness that shouldn’t have been there- the pain slammed into him with full force. He knew his shoulder had been shot through, that he at least remember, so it really didn’t bother him all that much. (Shit, he’d gotten worse before, this was a scratch compared to the body cast he had been caged into after falling out of that Cathedral window. Now THAT was pain.)

But even the pain of a full body break couldn’t compare to the mother load of all headaches that viciously attacked him and clawed his brain.

It was like thousands of fire ants traipsing around his mind, clawing and ripping out matter.

"Guha!" Spike grunted, writhing in pain and confusion as he turned his head to the side, trying to figure out where he was. When his eyes opened it was completely dark- throwing him off completely as he knew he was on the Bebop and his eyes where open.

He blinked and concentrated, trying to understand, (And for one frightening thought hoping he hadn’t gone blind or something.) when right before his eyes, the darkness began to lift like the dimming of a light- only this time it was getting brighter. Spike stared as the lenses over his eyes accommodated his sight by shifting to complete and pitch black to a light- yet still vaguely dark that didn’t cause his eyes to much pain- yellow, allowing him to see.

Okay. This. Is weird.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. As soon as the strange lenses brightened enough for him to see Spike spotted Edward and Ein on the table.

But what was weird is what was around his head.

Spike turned his head once more to look at the ceiling fan- getting an even stranger feeling of deja vu and blinked.

Suddenly an inching feeling crept through his nose and without warning he let out a violent sneeze, sending him lurching upright so suddenly the pain in his head throbbed in protest increasing the already unbearable inferno cooking his brain.

When Spike sat up slightly at the sneeze, it gained Edwards and the Data dog’s attention and they both looked away from their puppet show to see Bandage-Spike person leaning over the couch on his good elbow sniffling.

"Yhay! Spike-person’s awake!" Ed cheered happily, drawing the bounty hunters attention to her as he tried to ward off the sound of…well anything. But her voice was echoing in his head.

And Spike didn’t have a chance.

"WHA!" He shrieked as Edward suddenly clobbered the wounded Cowboy, and crashed on top of him happily, grabbing two fist fulls of hair and shaking him.

"YHAY!" She cheered, rattling his screaming head in her exuberance as Spike clawed back trying to free himself- maybe even kill himself in the process seeing as he might find it a kinder escape. To make his already painful matters worse, poor Ein had gotten dragged along with her and was wedged between them both, his nose directly in Spike’s face as he howled in protest.

Make.

Spike gave out strangled cries of anger as Edward happily stood up- ON TOP of his chest- and used him as a trampoline to flip over the couch. The Earth Hacker landed on the floor at the head of couch and ran off laughing cheerfully, making weird airplane noises with her arms outstretched at her sides.

That left Spike lying there in psychological shock with Ein on top of his chest.

Ein slowly stood up and marched over Spike to stand on his good shoulder and the Data dog peered down at him as Spike’s eyes slowly shifted behind the mysterious lenses to stare directly at him.

Apparently the murderous glare he gave Ein was enough to persuade the dog to move along because he immediately jumped off of Spike to clatter around the table, leaving the prone form of the cowboy lying stretched out on the couch.

Once everything was gone, Spike lie there feeling rather ill. His head felt twice its normal weight and he was a bit nauseated by the pain.

So, Spike lifted his good arm and slid his hand into his pocket, pulling out a cigarette and lamely sticking it into his mouth. The yellow tint to his vision was a bit odd and throwing him off slightly since the Bebop’s drab walls where now a disgusting happy bright color.

Pain.

Fire.

Unbearable.

Weight.

"Shit." He groaned, rolling over- cigarette still tightly clutched in his teeth- as he hit the soft wall of the back of the couch and gripped his head. That inferno in his mind was almost driving him to TEARS and Spike was not a man who cried over pain. It was forty times worse then a hang over.

As he lay there in utter misery, holding onto his head with his fingers exploring the edges of the lenses, his legs stretched out and his feet bumped into something on the end of the couch.

He opened his eyes once more- frowning when he realized over a mental review- that he hadn’t noticed anything at the end of the couch, and griped the top edge of the couch to sit up ever so slightly to peer over his wounded shoulder that was wrapped in bandages.

On the end of the couch- the lenses light up brighter yellow and focused in on his legs where his socked feet had hit a briefcase. It was sitting on the end of the couch near the armrest, burnt black in a light coating of charcoal. Plastic was melted and fused with duct tape onto its sides from whatever fire it had obviously been placed in, and the handle itself was hanging off on one rung pathetically.

Spike temporarily forgot about his pain- wondering if he was just flat out losing his mind, but when he squinted at it harder, he decided he was truly seeing that.

He rolled back on his side, and closed his eyes- mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do- and he reached up with his good arm, holding onto the couch and pulling himself up into a sitting position. When he did so, his temporary amnesia about his head pain came crashing back in full force with twice as much vengeance as the ants shrieked and clawed, burring and tearing into his brain inches deeper then on the surface.

"Ugh!" Spike grunted, holding onto his hair as he steadied his swimming vision. The Bebop suddenly looked a lot…more unsteady, and he was going to fall back down when he remembered through his blur of technological haze when he remembered the briefcase.

And Spike’s curiosity ALWAYS overrode pain.

After all, pain was just life.

Spike steadied his breathing, and twisted back around so that he was merely sitting with his legs out in front of him. He blinked at the briefcase.

He leaned forward, his shaking hands grazing the ashy case- barley able to make it from the pain in his head since the motion sent the room spinning but his determination kept him going.

That and a sneeze.

Because when Spike let out a sneeze, the motioned pushed him forward and his hands grabbed onto the case, leaning back with the treasure now held in his hands.

"Heh heh." Spike chuckled proudly, and he examined the case, trying to find the locks. He frowned when he saw that they where melted over each other, fused together- making the case impossible to open.

Oh well. When there’s a will. There’s a way!

Spike quickly looked around to make sure nobody was watching, and then he reached behind him to where he knew his gun was and pulled it out. Clicking the gun ready, Spike closed his eyes and pointed it at the glazed locks, and pulled the trigger.

BAM BAM BAM!

The gun fired and the bullets slammed into the case, embedding into the melted locks. He winced and his brain protested each loud noise, but on the third and final bullet- the locks snapped off the case completely with a ZINNNG!

Opening his eyes, Spike looked down and grinned to himself, cocking the gun back onto safety and re-holstering it away. His hands where shaking from the loud sounds that his mind could barley handle, but he ripped the locks off and pulled at the melted plastic, that last part taking a few more seconds because the plastic was melted.

Instead, what lie folded inside was a weird looking puppet-dummy like doll.

Spike stared at it for a moment, the reached inside- pulling the doll out, unfolding with the movement and held it in front of him staring at the weirdest creation he had ever seen.

The doll was made out of technology metal in the fashion of a marionette doll- minus the strings, or so it seemed. He was about three feet big, wearing dark blue and black his costume in the fashion of a jester in a King’s court. He had on dark blue pants, or shorts really with black pants under the shorts that covered his skinny legs. Around his waist he wore one of those puffy waist things people in Shakespeare plays wore, striped into slightly lighter blue and black patterns. Around the upper portion of his body he wore a baggy dark blue shirt with long oversized sleeves, in the front of which stopped at the middle of his fingers- his hands of which where gloved in black leather gloves. The back of the sleeves dropped and widened into a point behind his hands the point practically reaching to his knees.

Over his strange shirt, he wore another with complicated vests that had hundreds of golden bells that jingled when he moved. Around his weird oval shaped face he wore a black cloth mast like the one Zorro use to wear. On his head he wore a funky hat, tons of black and blue dread locks dangling around it’s face each lock holding a little bell on it, the bottom of the hat hugged around his head.

The real killer was his shoes though. They where dark blue as well, rolled around his ankles but curled toward him at his toes in a curly Q, the tips of which each held a little bell.

It was also the weirdest thing that Spike had ever seen in his entire life.

"What the hell is this thing?" He demanded out loud as he stared at it. Spike shook the doll, the bells jingling like Christmas.

It resembled an old Earth puppet called a Dummy.

He frowned, wondering if it was mechanical or something that had caused the sounds he thought he had heard coming from the case but the stupid thing’s head just flopped back and forth like a dead fish, jingling and jingling.

Spike turned the doll around and inspected it’s back, trying to find a pull string. There was one but it resembled that of a headphone plug, and when he pulled at the sting it didn’t do anything. When he flipped it around once more- it’s mouth fell open revealing a CD slot and he gripped the thing by its neck as he used one hand to pull open the small mouth.

There WAS a disk inside! It was small, about the size of a quarter but it quiet clearly stood out among its mouth shining in the light.

Spike tapped on the disk, and then frowned when it still didn’t do anything. He slowly pulled his finger out of the mouth, then pushed it closed, sliding the slot closed.

THAT did something. Because as soon as it closed, a low humming sound from inside the doll vibrated as it activated and it’s weird computer imaged eyes lit up in the glass sockets. Its eyes where bright green, the white parts not white but black.

"HIYA!" It bellowed out- it’s mechanical mouth moving. It’s voice sounding EXSTATIC to be alive.

Spike jumped, surprised by the sudden bellowing happy-voice; but he nearly dropped the doll but managed to hold onto its arms as he stared.

"Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, to fetch a pail of water! Then he fell and had a great fall, POP goes the weasel!" It screamed out- teeth grindingly cheerful- it’s head bobbing back and forth as it rattled out the wrong lines to the poem.

Oh god. It was a Tickle Me Elmo doll- with the obnoxious level upgraded by nine.

The cigarette in Spike’s mouth sagged as he stared at the doll without much expression.

"Penny for a spool of thread! They both fell down and Jack broke his crown, and all the kings horses and all the Kings men couldn’t put the poor weasel back together again!" It sang out, it’s arms waving like a birds as it chirped.

"Those are the wrong words stupid." Spike told it and sighed.

Okay. Curiosity SO not worth the end result.

"Who are you?" It asked cheerfully, grabbing onto the ends of its dread lock hat, and pulled giving Spike the biggest dippiest smile that was as bright as a light bulb.

"Spike Spiegel." Spike told it dully around the smoke as he chewed on the end of the cigarette thoughtfully, talking to it for lack of anything better to talk to at the moment.

"Hi ya Spike!" It exclaimed happily. For a moment the big drippy eyes floating up to stare at the lenses over his eyes. It was for a brief seconds, but Spike swore he saw the things computerize eyes widen in surprise then go back to it’s glazed stupid cute look and they looked at him directly.

"Do you want to be my friend?" It asked cheekily, it’s mechanical hands grabbing the sides of its mouth and stretching its mouth out the size of a plate as it grinned.

"Not even if you where the last intelligent life form on the face of the galaxy." Spike told it.

Annoyed, Spike threw the useless toy down over the side of the couch to clatter on the floor by the coffee table. Once it clunked he fell back down on his back and sighed.

"Owie!" The doll yelped. Then- "Jack ass!"

Spike froze, (Did I just hear that?) then slowly rolled onto his wounded shoulder- ignoring the slight pain- and stared over the side of the couch down at the doll where it lie in a mangled position on the floor.

It’s computerized eyes- that had been looking at the ceiling- slowly turned back to Spike and blinked back at him. It plastered that same goofy grin on it’s face- it’s head popping up at the prospect of a friend.

Spike gave it a beady-eyed look, slowly going back to lie on the couch, pondering this latest mental voice development.

Without warning, the stupid things head popped up near his own, and when he turned he saw the thing at eye level- grinning like an idiot.

"WHOA!" Spike yelled, pulling upright shocked to surprised to pay any attention to the pain in his head. The Doll happily lay its hands onto the seat of the couch, and hoisted himself up onto the seat and threw his arms out wide to bade a rather shocked Spike hello.

"COME ON!" It said cheerfully. "Be my friend!"

"Drop dead!" Spike exclaimed, and reached behind him- de-holstering his gun and he aimed the weapon’s muzzle tip directly between its eyes, already thoroughly sick of this useless interactive creation.

The dolls smile never wavered, as it’s green eyes crossed to peer at the muzzle. Then the doll did something highly un-expected just as Spike’s finger began to tightened on the trigger.

It smiled at him, and promptly stuck it’s finger in the gun muzzle.

Spike stared in utter shock at the action.

"Let go!" He demanded.

"No!" It chirped obnoxiously.

Spike’s eyes narrowed behind the lenses as he glared. He wasn’t sure if this whole…rebellious action thing was a part of it’s programming but it sure was annoying as hell. So Spike twisted the gun downward- twisting it’s finger and it shrieked in surprise as he grabbed it by it’s neck and pulled it at eye level with him. It’s belled feet kicked wildly as it waved its arms panicked.

"Whoa there!" It yelped, but just as Spike was about to start squeezing it’s life out of it’s body and pop it’s head, a thin figured shadow from above him loomed over him from the railing behind the couch, taking the bounty hunter a moment to register the changing shade of yellow.

"Well well well. If it isn’t our local crowning Sleeping beauty all woken up and refreshed to a brand new day. Wonderful tea parties, playing with dollies…" Faye Valentine commented as she stretched her perfect body, her arms over her head as she looped her hands behind her hair and leaned her hip against the railing. Spike and the doll looked upward at the new arrival and she smirked down at them.

"Having fun Princess?" She asked sweetly.

Oh great, this is just what I need.

"I’d rather be the sleeping princess then the Wicked Witch of the West, MISS. Valentine." Came Spike’s scathing comeback as he glared at her.

Faye chuckled as she rested her elbows on the edge of the rail and looked back down at him.

"Its about time you woke up." She said disinterested as she knelt down on one knee examining her manicured nails. "You’ve been sleeping for the past day and a half."

Spike’s eyes widened in shock as he forgot about the doll and simply let it drop from his hand.

"A day in a half!" He cried.

"OUCH! Hey! What gives here-" He vaguely thought he heard the doll protest, but instead he rolled on his own elbows and stared upward at her in confusion as Faye continued as she examined her nails.

"Uh huh." She said. "Jet thought you had slipped into a coma and we where going to take you to a hospital in a few hours."

"Why?" Spike asked, feeling a bit disorientated. He never really gave too much thought on how long he had been asleep, had simply thought it a few hours. The sudden time differential was confusing his already aching mind.

"I’ve been hurt worse. No big deal." He said, the ach in his shoulder glowing more to his attention as he said that, his right hand clutching at the bandages and he rolled his shoulder experimentally.

It hurt but nothing that would require a hospital.

"Not for you’re shoulder you lunk head, for you’re head." Faye said as she peered down at the bounty hunter.

"My head?" Spike asked. (It DID feel like his brain has exploded, maybe something much more serious had happened to him then he realized.)

Faye sighed, and she lifted her arm up- fishing around in the hidden pocket of her red coat underneath her arm until she pulled out a hand held mirror. Un-folding it, she held the open mirror out over his face for him to see his new head accessory.

Spike stared at the pooling reflective surface shocked. The yellow lenses extended over his eyes away from the actual optical unit by an inch like a protective bubble around his eyes. The lenses themselves extended down from a blue fiberglass frame that was framed by golden wire, wrapping around his forehead and behind his ears around his head completely. From above where the lenses extended down from that band, the band itself extended away from his temples about two inches, revealing two nodes conduits where he could see silver needles injected into his temples where the nodes centered around. The fiberglass and yellow lenses themselves where lightly glowing internally from its circuits, blue and yellow light surrounding almost outlining where it was attached to his head like a halo.

It was also heavy, and the obvious source of Spike’s excruciating headache and increase in head weight.

"What… the hell… is this?" Spike pronounced slowly, reaching up for the mirror. Faye gave it to him and he took it, holding the cool surface of the compact closer to his face as he examined the surface.

"You don’t know?" Faye asked.

"Nope." Spike said as his fingers fluttered up and gently traced along the rims of the device. He closed his eyes, allowing his fingers to explore the foreign object- and they trailed along until they reached the needles themselves where they injected into his temples. His fingertips trailed along the injection point on his skin, and suddenly he could feel a piercing pain on his skin and felt cool slick liquid. When he opened his eyes, he saw that his fingers where coated in blood and when he peered at the mirror he saw the red slimy liquid running down the side of his face from their entry point.

Double great.

"You. The knight they need to get the talisman back from is you."

At his side, two gloved hands slammed onto the seat of the couch and the doll pulled itself back to it’s feet, wobbling as it grabbed onto it’s hat and it steadied itself, glaring at Spike.

"He told me a story." Spike said quietly as the light of the car playing across Puck filled his vision. Faye looked down and blinked when Spike allowed the compact mirror to clatter down to the ground- the doll looking at the floor at it. When she looked at his face he was a million miles away in thought, but looking at her.

"What?" She asked.

"Marrow. I mean, Puck." Spike said. "He told me a story when I went to bring him down. I think it was a fairy tale or something."

"I know lots of fairy tales!" The doll offered and it was ignored as Spike sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the couch so that he was sitting up properly. His hands rubbed at his burning head as he tried to think.

The doll reached up and tugged on the pocket of his pants.

"I know lots of stories." It repeated.

"What’s a story have to do with that thing on you’re head?" Faye asked, climbing to her feet as she leaned over the railing- peering down at his green hair.

"I don’t know." Spike said. "I think it’s important."

He struggled to remember what Puck had told him through the haze of red pain throbbing in his skull, hovering just behind his eyes.

"Once upon a time there was a King. He was a powerful King and he commanded a Council of wizards." Spike recited out loud.

"Then one day the King died!" The doll chirped cheerfully.

Spike gave a start when those where the exact words that he was hearing inside his memory and he turned to stare at the Doll that blinked back and clicked his fingers together, the bells on its cloths and hat and shoes jingling lightly.

"I know lots of stories!" The doll repeated cheerfully, throwing its arms out and spinning in mindless circles happily.

"What is that thing?" Faye asked as she stared at the doll as it spun around.

"The latest thing since kids in interactive annoyances." Spike answered dully. Suddenly the doll latched onto his leg in a happy hug and Spike let out a yelp, waving his foot, trying to ward it off.

"Spike’s my friend!" The doll chirped up to a smirking Faye.

"Aw. How sweet." She cooed down.

"I am NOT!" Spike snapped, shaking his foot in the attempt to dislodge the nuisance. "Stop saying that!" He grabbed the things funky hat and pulled, finally getting it off, holding it- the doll still grinning like a moron- a few feet away from him.

"What story are those lines from?" He demanded, shaking it slightly, rattling the bells as it jingled like a sleigh.

"Are you going to be my friend?" It asked innocently, batting its huge drippy eyes at him hopefully.

"Drop dead!" Came the charming reply.

"Then I’m not going to tell you!" He huffed, and then stuck his tongue out at Spike, wiggling his mechanical fingers at him like a five year old.

Spike got so angry he turned as purple as Faye’s hair, and once more pointed his gun at the doll- FULLY prepared to fire and was going when Faye’s voice interrupted him.

"It’s a story by Sir Arthur Joslin Dales." Faye said downward. "He was a old Earth writer in the Renaissance period that wasn’t really well known."

Spike stopped his pre-murder attempt, and turned to look at the Bounty hunter Cowgirl as Faye walked down the stairs into the Bebop’s living room area, yawning. Spike dropped the doll with an "OAF!" from the toy.

"How do you know that?" Spike demanded as Faye sat down on the coffee table, crossing her legs to sit in the lotus position.

"It’s just a old bedtime story. A fairy tale. Edward has a ton of the old Earth stories downloaded on her computer. I found some when I was using it, and kinda got engrossed. It’s a really bad story." She said, looping her fingers together and resting her elbows on her knees, resting her chin in her fingers as she looked at him.

"Oh. Well how dose it go? I only heard a few lines about a Council, Knight, and Kings before I…uh." Spike voice trailed off as he tried to remember. Almost unconsciously his left hand griped into a fist as his foggy brain struggled to remember what had happened to him.

"Before I can’t remember anymore." He finished.

Faye sighed dramatically, leaning back.

"You know, normally I would charge you a fee for this information if I didn’t feel so sorry for you." She advised and Spike stuck his own tongue out at her. "Anyway!" Faye said, reaching over and plunking the cigarette out of his mouth. Faye pulled her own lighter and lit the stick of nicotine and Spike watched with an open mouth as she smoked HIS cigarette.

Faye smirked at him and blew out a caressing tentacle of smoke at his face. "The story was called "The Toy Maker" and was never completed."

"Why?" Spike asked through gritted teeth as he tried to ignore the smoke and concentrate on his current situation.

"Dunno. Just wasn’t." She said shrugging. "The story is a really weird one anyway. Nothing in particular stuck in my mind about the story. I think it was about the Toy Maker and this special doll he created for the Council of Wizards to hold their Kings Spirit because their King was ill and dying, but in order to perform the spell, they needed to create a special talisman or something to trap his soul when he died before it went to the Other Realm."

Spike’s hand unconsciously trailed up to his head as he listened to Faye, and his fingers trailed along the glowing edges of the wire frame. Something was nagging in the back of his burning mind about this, because he knew that some sort of clue was in that story- but he didn’t know what it was without reading the complete version.

He didn’t notice the doll- which has been standing near his legs when he dropped it- pipe up happily, and the Doll started to tap on his knee with on finger; trying to gain Spike’s attention.

Spike studiously ignored the Interactive nuisance as he struggled to recall what had happened to him when he confronted Puck.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Ta-

"WHAT!" Spike bellowed, his patience snapping as he jerked over and glared at the obnoxious creation, SERIOUSLY regretting his past curiosity as to what was in that weird suitcase.

"Sir Arthur Joslin Dales was accused of being a spy in the late 16^th century. He was living at Castle Brunosfeild, and the Barron of the castle- who was insane- believed that Sir Dales was sending secret messages to his enemies through his stories. So, because of his rich status- he had Sir Dales executed in the middle of Town Square. They hung him upside down from a tree and slowly bleed him to dead by allowing dogs to attack him." The Doll informed him helpfully.

Faye and Spike stared then looked at each other.

"Tough crowd." Spike commented and she nodded. He returned his attention to the doll. "How do you know that?" He demanded.

"I KNOW LOTS OF STORIES!" It squealed happily, starting to repeat the same process of spinning in circles. But before he could, Spike put the gun’s muzzle on top of his head- stopping the Interactive Top’s rotation.

"Okay you obnoxious little story storage unit, how did the story with the Toy Maker go?" He asked, hooking the muzzle around on of the Dolls vests and lifting the doll into the air like a worm on a hook. (Pretty accurate description really.)

The doll hung there, blinking back at him with that same dammed happy-cute expression on its face.

"Are you going to be my friend?" It asked happily, kicking and swinging in circles in the air, grabbing onto the curly end on his shoe as he spun like a windsock.

Faye almost choked with laughter on the smoke she inhaled from her cigarette at the murderous look on Spike’s face as he glared at the doll.

Spike knew he would regret this… but the shrieking agony of his head reminded him that either death- or a lifetime of annoyances from this thing was the only thing that could fix this situation.

This was a VERY hard choice.

"Fine." Spike grinded out between clenched teeth as he glared at it. "I’ll be you goddamn, mother freaking BEST friend if you TELL ME THE FLIPPING STORY!" He roared, shaking the doll.

"YHAY!" The doll cheered happily, and swung its legs up, wrapping them around a surprised Spike’s arm, and hugging him with his arms and legs like a Lemur Monkey. "I have a new best friend! YHAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" It cheered happily.

"ARG!" Spike roared, shaking his arm furiously, trying once more to dislodge the doll form his arm.

Faye was laughing hysterically as Spike tried to shake himself free, and she ended up falling off the table.

She sat there on the floor laughing hysterically as Spike furiously shook his arm, trying to dislodge the Doll.

"GET OFF OF ME!" He roared.

"I have a new friend!" The Doll squealed happily, thrilled beyond belief.

Okay, Spike’s previous lists of "Things-he- couldn’t-stand" had just upgraded from 3 to 4. Now, he could no longer stand pets, children, women with attitude, and TOYS THAT TALKED!

"GET! OFF! OF! ME!"

It didn’t look good.

Generally when a MRI heat scans where run; the image played back was a colorful head scanned pitcher of the brain. The Brain would have been highlighted in different colors, blue for the problem areas, orange for the doormat areas, and red for the active ones. There was green as well but the green was a color that showed up around the brain representing the brain fluid around the mind.

When a person was healthy, then there would be very many red areas on the brain, spotted with orange. The colors all fluxated and pulsed with life in the general brain electronics much like a heart did when it pumped blood. (The aspect for the brain being pretty much the same with the electronically impulses that powered the organ.) With each electrical pulse given, data on the condition of the brain was transmitted

But Spike’s scan was horrible wrong.

Instead of the colorful image of a healthy brain his scan was distorted. When the scan was run, Jet thought originally at least the frontal lobe of his mind would be coated blue as a problem area because the needles had been inserted in his temples. At the worst, since Spike hadn’t regained consciousness- Jet thought that there would be minor damage that would require some surgery at the worst and at the best at least a delicate removal of the needles.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Sitting at the main console on the Bebop’s Bridge, the stars from Earth’s night sky glittered like dew on the window as Jet studiously ignored the beautiful sky as he stared worriedly at the scan. His cybernetic fingers tapping the arm rest of his seat as his eyes reviewed once more of the pitcher.

Instead of all the medical colors and information that the MRI provided generally, Spike’s scan was deformed horribly. Brown webbing had- when Jet clicked on an internal data scan- weaved inside the delicate inside of his brain, wrapping around nerves and veins. Black veins where extended from the webbing, pushing and pulsating through the cracks of the mind. One the surface of the brain scan, horrible sliver almost wire like threads where slowly threading their way across his brain’s lobes. The green fluid around his brain was distorted orange with spikes of red- signaling activity that should not have been there around his brain.

All of this horrible images where due to the two needles and whatever device was in his head now. The needles where embedded to two central lines in the brain. (I.E. the Brain had four various stems inside of the organ that pulsed the electronically impulses and regulated them.) They needles had disrupted the electronic impulses horrible, but not so much it had made him a vegetable. Instead, most of the central webbing was sprouting from those stems. The needles where ever so slight pushing in and out slowly, - not so much as the naked eye would detect it- pumping out a strange black like fluid into the stems, feeding it through the webbing as the obvious serum of whatever mutation he was witnessing.

And this strange…brain warping had only begun around his frontal lobe. It had been a day and a half and only a few inches looked like this, but thin threads where already rooting deeper into his mind, seeds sown for more growing.

This wasn’t going to be something removed easily; it was going to require EXTENSIVE brain surgery to remove and clean out. And even if Jet could AFFORD a procedure like that, the strange webbing was so…interracially weaved in his mind the surgery alone would most likely leave Spike with sever and total brain damage without a doubt.

"Shit." Jet sighed, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. He hadn’t realized that when he had first brought Spike back to the ship that this deceive was such a threat to the young cowboy. The needles themselves had caused him some concern, but he had chalked it up to a program downloading into his mind that Puck had gotten around his head when Spike was down. (Downloading programs into a brain wasn’t that difficult for a computer expert like Puck.)

But this…this was beyond computers. It was literally genetically warping his brain. For or into what he didn’t know since it wasn’t computer related in anyway.

And this time Spike wasn’t getting out of this with a graze or a slight wound that could be stitched up. Without a doubt he would be ending up dead or severely retarded due to this thing.

Those where the only two options. And for once Jet found himself hoping for something he never thought he think for anyone would in a million years.

He hoped Spike would never wake up from his coma.

He felt horrible for thinking that, but looking at the scan helped a bit. He would try everything in the meantime to help his younger partner- starting with finding Puck, but this looked to…awful to live with. Spike had to be either Spike like he was or it just wasn’t living for him. He knew Spike would think that to.

Jet sighed. "This is just great." He muttered, flicking the cigarette ashes off to the side.

"Three times Twix, five times five, nine plus three equals four by seven, a hundred time one equals EIN!" Edward Wong Tupluskvy the 4^th happily sang out as from behind Jet the Bridge hatch opened and the strange Earth Hacker came cartwheeling into the Zero Gravity Bridge of the bebop, swinging around with Ein as she literally bounced off the walls. As she did so, jumping back and floating through the air, she flipped the Data Dog through the air of the Bridge as the dog furiously ran futilely in the air, trying to balance himself in vain.

Jet turned around as Ed came into the room just in time to get a face full of dog, as Ein slammed straight into his face.

"PLOURCH!" Jet yelped, trying to bat the dog away from his face in surprise. Jet managed to shove Ein off of him, sending him careening off as he straightened up.

"What now Ed?" Jet asked dully, turning back around to sink into his seat, looking at his crushed cigarette sadly. (A damn fine smoke shot to hell.)

CLOINK!

"Ack!" Jet gasped as Ed’s head slammed on top of his as she floated above him to peer at the screen he was reading from.

"Oh la la. Funny pitcher." Ed commented as she peered at the screen thoughtfully as Jet struggled to free his head. Edward abruptly shoved her face forward so she was nose-to-nose with the screen and peered at the image.

Edward titled her head as she looked at the strange configuration of the strange webbing, her computer-thinking mind running through the strange pattern. Suddenly it hit her where she had seen it before and was about to ask Jet when Jet spit out his smoke, and grabbed into Edward’s face, pushing her back up and glaring at her as he rubbed his abused head.

"Just what do you want Edward?" He asked annoyed, in absolutely no mood for this right now.

"Spike persons awake!" Edward cheered as she spun in circles, forgetting about the pretty pitcher.

Jet sighed. (Leave it to Spike to be stubborn enough to wake up from a debilitating coma when it would just be better for him to sleep it off. For a guy who spends nearly 18 hours of the day sleeping anyway, a coma should have been a cakewalk!) Oh well. Spike never did what he was told anyway why start now on the brink of death?

"How’s he doing?" He asked, leaning back in his chair and watching Edward spin about over to where she had left her self-named lap top computer ‘Tomato’. She happily used her feet to pick it up, spinning the computer about as she floated above the keyboard to type, her computer goggles sliding over her yellow eyes.

"Spike-person is feeling better but wants to hear a story! So Edward is going to find the one written by the dead man that ‘Sprite-boy’ told him so he can read it!" Edward said, turning on the goggles as they lit up, static filling the bubble portion of the glasses.

Was it just Jet, or did that answer make absolutely no sense whatsoever?

That took a moment to run through Jet’s internal ‘Edward-filter’ but is still didn’t make much sense.

"What the heck dose that mean?" Jet demanded.

Edward happily straightened her arms out in mentally preparation, serving the inside of the computer Net, wadding mentally thought the colors and smiley faces inside until she came up to her Story Files. It was quick and easy and with the clicks of en-coded happy faces, brought up her files.

"Fairy tales from days of old, old, old, bring be the up access file of the one that was never told!" She intoned dramatically, and giggled as she hit the keyboard.

With a humming FWOOSH the file that contained the story Spike was previously speaking off was brought up on screen and floated among all the miscellaneous data.

"TA DA!" She cheered.

Jet frowned, unhooking his legs from underneath the console, and pushing his body into the air. Being experienced with no gravity, the older bounty hunter swam up next to the Computer Hacker. As he steadied himself next to her, he looked at the screen closely.

It was a fairy tale. (?)

The Toy Maker

By: Sir Arthur Joslin Dales

Owning and building toys in his own factory named ‘Peko’s Toys’ located directly in the center of town- Hans, with the help of his apprentice- would use his special power to make all his toys come alive and play just like real people.

One day, this Toy Maker was crafting a very special doll in the back room of his store. Before he could finish, his apprentice came running into the room to tell him of a Wizard that had come to their shop to speak with him. Sure enough, the bell above the door ran as the Wizard came into the store.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

When the special Toy Maker went out to his main store to talk with the Wizard, the Wizard- also a special man named One- told him that he was the first member of the Council of Wizards that governed all magical matter in the land and protected the people from the Dragons and enemies.

One told Hans that their King, Lord Edward the 7^th was ill and would die in a matter of days. The Council did not wish for him to die and they told the Toy Maker that in order for him to live against they needed to trap his soul in another vessel.

Hans agreed to create a doll worthy or housing their lord’s spirit but told One in order for them to place King Edwards soul inside the doll, they needed a special talisman to place on his chest before he died, so that when he took his last breath- and his soul escaped his body- the talisman would trap his soul in the realm of the living before it escaped to The Other Side fully.

The only one that One knew possessed such a powerful talisman was a hidden Knight by the name of Lord Dales, who was a traveler among the stars in the sky and rarely seen.

One agreed that his Council would retrieve the magical talisman. He would send out the Council’s monstrous servant the De’vor- a demon dog that could track down anything- to locate Lord Dales so that they may have the talisman.

Hans told them that he need not only three days to make the doll before King Edward died and they needed the talisman before then or

"Where’s the rest?" He demanded.

Edward shrugged again. "That’s all that was written for the story. It was never complete and Author-man died before he finished writing it."

What dose this have to do with Spike and his current situation? Jet wondered as he looked back at the screen, his eyes scanning the story again.

Behind them, Ein finally managed to grab onto the seat belt of Jet’s seat where his console was with his teeth as he floated by once more after bouncing off the window. (Unnoticed by all.) The Data Dog clawed at the seat with his stubby paws, gripping his way down the seat back until he managed to sit down on the seat, fully planted there and no longer floating.

Ein breathed a sigh of relief, his ears sagging from the tension. When he looked over at Jet and Edward, he barked for attention but was ignored and simply waved off by Jet- who shook his cybernetic hand at him disinterested.

Ein frowned, whining slightly as he turned and looked at the glowing screen. The Data dog perked up as he stared at the image of the MRI scan and he huffed slightly in curiosity. The Dog slowly climbed up to rest his paws on the console lip and he peered at the image and huffed once more- this time in a gasp, recognizing the pattern.

He looked back at Jet and Edward once more and barked repeatedly, this time in distress.

"Can it Ein!" Jet called back annoyed.

Ein growled annoyed and looked back at the screen worriedly. Ein was much smarter then you’re average dog, and unknowing to most people- smarter then most humans. HE recognized the patter of conduits webbing and weaving on the scan in front of him and knew that it was vitally important someone listen to him.

But how do you tell someone something this important when you where a Dog?

Gandolf was lying outside on the roof on the main portion of the dome building, the only light illuminating anything in the darkness emanated from the full moon that glowed softly in the sky above.

As he lay on the glass, higher then anyone ever got without being in a starship- his gloved finger trailed along the starry sky, tracing the constellation Cancer with the lightest touch. His glowing wolf eyes gleamed in the light of the moon as he stared up at the sky.

He smiled coolly as his finger trailed along the stars, whispering through the air.

"How do you track a ghost?" Gandolf whispered coyly as he slipped past a security alarm guarding the "Ship Registrations" and entered the long data halls of information of the ISSP archives.

"Through the fog in my mind toward my dreams,

"I see the eye through darkness gleams." He mouthed to the words of the soft and beautiful melody that moaned out the notes.

"In life the world spins, on humanities finger.

His gloved finger trailed along the stars on more, gently tracing to Scorpius.

"And in those dreams you appear.

Gandolf smiled his in-humanly smile of a wolf and his finger trailed down from the sky, lightly flittering across the sparse lights left in building where Earther’s still dwelled above ground, caressing along the air and twined through the ruins- to stop at a old sea dock where one small twinkle of light glittered from a ship that was docked there.

He pointed his forefinger and cocked his thumb in the hand gesture of a gun towards the light.

"Bang."

The interactive jester doll happily danced around on top of the coffee table in front of Spike as it did Disco moves, slashing through the air with his finger and arm as he hulaed about.

Spike was sitting on the couch- upright much to the protesting of his burning mind- and was currently watching this strange musical display as his legs where resting on the table crossed in front of him, his elbows perched on the back of the couch as the bounty hunter stared with half closed eyes- somewhat hunched over from disgust, fatigue, and disbelief to his current situation of entertainment.

"Don’t be afraid at all! Cause up in outer space there’s no gravity to fall, put you eyes and your mind to the test! Cause up in outer space it’s like the Wild Wild WEST!" It bellowed out, stopping its insane dance to grab onto it’s hat and proceeded to spin its head around like The Exorcist on fast forward as it’s head spun like a top- the doll twisted it’s waist like it was wearing a hula hoop and waving it’s arms off to the side in its version of dancing to this song.

"If you wanna fly! Come and take a ride, take a space ride with a cowboy! Babe, if you wanna fly, take a space ride with a cowboy! Why yi yi yippy yi yhay yippy yho yiipy yi yo! A WHY YHY YIPPY YHY YHA A YIPPY Yi YHAH!!" The doll stopped its head spinning dance move and froze all it’s limbs, doing the classical Disco Robotic dance in place, then proceeded to mimic the Egyptian walk.

Spike squinted as he just stared at this insane display. He growled in annoyance, running his hand over his face and the lenses in exasperation.

So far he had been sitting here for the past fifteen minutes watching this ridicules doll bleat out songs in the attempt to impress his new friend. When Spike then informed the doll that he was a Cowboy and MORE THEN WILLING to shoot it if the thing didn’t shut up, it instantly launched into every old Earth Cowboy song in its data banks.

Whatever he was singing now was from an old Earth melody singing group called a "Boy Band"? (A long since extinct musical creation that had Spike thanking God it had died along with Earth.) The song actually wasn’t so bad as compared to the nine vocal re-arrangements he had been forced to listen to of "Home on the Rang"- (At least this one had some rhythm.) but non-the-less nerve grindingly annoying.

And as stupidly obnoxious as this entire display was, it also managed to hold Spike’s attention for a bit as a distraction. It was kinda fascinating really. Like seeing a natural disaster that could never have been prevented. You just sort of…awed in the disbelief of it all.

"Move and let you try to stop me, doing the fly sky high into the top seat! Then the fear, no doubts and no tears, millennium sound in a month and future years." As if it’s dancing and teeth grindingly annoying happy voice wasn’t bad enough the Doll then straightened up and started speaking rapidly, shaking it’s rear as it raped, trying to be cool by pumping its arms out and crossing them over its chest, tapping it’s foot.

"And you can either be scared or be prepared- against all odds betcha would have never dared, to make these moves and take flight like me, to come through for the world prophecy! Space connecters over through you interceptors, ready or not make it hot their ain’t no question, get NSYNC and put you’re head to the sky, and lets ride!" It bellowed out, the end of the rap over and the doll then launched into a tap routine- the stupidity of that amplified by its ridicules curly shoes.

Spike rubbed tiredly at his throbbing temples as he tried in vain to filter the existence of this thing out. So far threatening it didn’t do any good, nor did outright shooting it because Spike had tried about five minutes ago when he just couldn’t stand it anymore. But the bullet ended up hitting inside the dolls mouth and the toy just swallowed it.

And Spike had absolutely NO idea how to turn it off. (He also knew that he had learned humility and he would never EVER open another package or suitcase that didn’t belong to him ever again!)

Spike tiredly looked at the doll as it continued to sing, doing dance move that would have made contortionists cringe. His head was killing him so badly now he could hardly focus clearly on the doll, but the pain was too bad to go to sleep.

As an unconscious thought, Spike looked at the clock on the far side of the wall, and noticed through his foggy mind that it was 5:00.

Big Shot was on.

"A Why yi yi yippy yi- YHA!" The doll let out a shriek of surprise that interrupted its grand final solo as Spike lifted his left leg and thrust his shoe forward, knocking the toy off the table violently.

Without bothering to move, he just pulled his leg back and used his heal to click the T.V. on and leaned back more comfortably.

The doll’s hands suddenly fished out into the air across the table, and it grabbed onto the edge and pulled itself upright woozily- it’s funky dread lock colorful hat hanging off the side of his face as it tried to stand up.

CLICK.

The doll froze at the sound of the gun and blinked looking back to see Spike had leveled his own weapon at it.

"Stay." He commanded in the tone of "I’m-about-to-go-postal-don’t-push-me."

The doll gave Spike another one of the biggest and drippiest grins he had ever seen and promptly fell back down to the floor with a dull THUD, falling from sight.

Content that it would at least leave him alone for a little bit, Spike cocked the weapon back onto safety and leaned forward a little to secure the gun behind him as he watched Punch and Judy slid up next to each other cheerfully.

"Hi there! All three hundred fifty thousand bounty hunters in the solar system!" The enthusiastic black man drawled out happily.

"And now it’s time for Big Shot! The show all about fugitives!" Judy squealed.

"Finally. Some reality based entertainment." Spike muttered as he leaned back to watch what would soon appear on the bounty docket, stretching his good arm and yawning.

Spike was so engrossed into the show he didn’t pay any attention to the doll on the floor. He just twisted around and laid down on his side on the couch to get more conformable, and settled down miserably to watch as his brain pounded inside his skull, fiery infernos blazing every few seconds.

He didn’t think he could stand this device much longer.

Where was Edward with that story?

It wiggled back around the table, and once it was sure he was out of sight, climbed up to his knees and let out a squeak, holding onto the bells on his costume so they would jingle out noise.

He waited a minute to see if Spike was going to say something or maybe threaten him with his gun again, but he didn’t hear anything. So the Doll risked peeking over the lip of the tabletop and saw that the bounty hunter wasn’t paying any attention to anything in this reality.

He couldn’t think of a more perfect time to do this!

Climbing to his curly shoed feet, holding all the bells on his costume down so that he wouldn’t ring like a sleigh, the doll looked around and carefully tip toed around the table to the edge of the couch where Spike’s head was resting. He looked around and huffed when he realized he wasn’t big enough to climb onto the couch without waking Spike up from his zoning phase and just jumping on him completely.

The doll then looked up behind the couch and saw the large stared platform above it that lead to the hallway. He grinned to himself and carefully slipped past Spike’s head to run around the couch to where the stairs where.

Pulling himself up each step, the doll finally reached the platform and he army crawled across it to the very railing ledge of the form, and peered over the side to see that he was overlooking the prone form of the bounty hunter as he lie there.

Yes!

The doll climbed back to his feet and carefully slid under the railing, holding onto it with one gloved hand as he turned around and braced his feet on the ledge of the platform, trying to climb down rear first. But he really didn’t think this plan al the way through, (Something he really did quite often.) Because just as he was about to step off, he lifted his foot and his shoes where so slippery with absolutely no traction he lost his entire balance and went falling down directly to land on his butt on top of the back of the yellow couch with a comical squeak.

"Owie!" He cried out mournfully, and then bit his tongue when he realized that he was directly a foot away from Spike and he peered over his shoe to see that he hadn’t moved. Climbing to his feet and holding his poor abused rear, the doll carefully slid down and plopped onto the seat of the couch near Spike’s legs.

He hit the deck and let out a nervous squeal when Spike shifted slightly. He pressed up against the wall of the cushion and sweatdroped nervously until Spike mumbled something and settled down.

The doll awaited where he was, frozen for at least a minute until he was sure Spike wasn’t truly awake and messing with his head or something.

"Phew!" He breathed in relief and climbed back to his feet to stand up above Spike. He tried to remember what he had done with his weapon after he had threatened- and shot- him with it before.

Oh yhay! He kept it in a holster behind him!

The doll carefully tip toed, pressing up against the wall of the back of the couch, behind Spike and gingerly stepped far enough behind him so that he was about directly where he holstered his gun. (Unfortunately Spike was lying on his back- all though practically on the edge of the couch allowing the doll enough room to walk- he still had to get the weapon without waking him up, making this task so much more easier. Not!) He stopped and inspected to see if Spike moved, and then carefully inspected his options. Then the doll reached down and carefully grabbed onto the belt loops of the pants and tried to roll him over.

Unfortunately the intelligent doll really didn’t take the weight issue into thought. (While Spike himself didn’t weight all that much, the Doll didn’t have as much strength as a human.) Because when he attempted to roll Spike over- he wasn’t prepared for his lacking of strength and when he pulled upright to roll him his fingers snapped under the weight and his arms flew upward and his hands ended up smacking him in the face- knocking him completely over.

"Owp!" He gasped in surprise as he once again landed on his butt. He sat there in surprise then glared at the prone form of the bounty hunter and growled annoyed. Carefully bracing his back on the back cushion, he placed his curly shoes against Spike’s waist and then tried to shove him over using all his body weight.

It worked!

The doll almost shrieked with glee- but managed to keep him mouth shut as he tried and twisted his waist around to reach out to the holster. He unsnapped the snaps over the gun-handle and he managed to pull the gun out, nearly dropping it but the doll got the weapon.

Cool.

The doll dropped his feet and stood up quickly, picking up the heavy weapon in his hands. He looked around and tucked the gun up inside his hat so the doll could climb. He turned around and grabbed onto the cushion of the couch and managed- after a few minutes of struggling- to scramble up back onto the back of the couch.

Straightening up, the Doll nearly toppled backward but managed to balance himself. He jumped back around, and looked down at Spike once more before reaching up and pulling the gun down out from his hat.

Okay, sure. He did feel a little bad for having to kill the guy- but hey; all’s fair in love and war and this was in the name of self-preservation. (Particularly his self-preservation.) And in a way he was doing Spike a favor anyway. If the Council got to him first before the device killed him then the bounty hunter would be subjected to a fate worse then that- and stuff like that really kind of ruined a perfectly good day anyway, so who needed that?

Besides, he was sure Spike would understand. He’d probably even thank him! (Uh, well if the whole Death Thing didn’t put a buffer on that slight communication but he was sure Spike would be thinking that in spirit!)

Maybe he should say something first? Like, something meaningful or religious or something?

"Uh," The doll said, trying to think of something. Nothing particular was coming to his mind at the moment.

"Bless thou O lord for that we are about to eat our daily bread." The doll said and nodded proudly. Okay, that was religious and meaningful.

The Doll then leveled the gun muzzle and tried to steady the surprisingly heavy weapon at Spike’s head, holding onto the handle with one arm and trying to loop his other arm around the trigger.

Just as he was attempting to level the weapon the Doll failed to notice that on the stair well near the small refrigerator- the Welsh Corgi Data Dog Ein, who had managed to get off the bridge to maybe try to tell Spike about what he had seen on the screen- came walking up the stairs through the large circle archway towards the couch.

Ein looked up when he stepped down from the arch into the living room, and stopped when he saw what he saw. Standing on the back of the couch that weird Interactive loud-mouthed Doll was standing over Spike- who had apparently fallen asleep- and was trying to aim his gun at him to shoot him with.

Ein huffed in surprise, not entirely sure what was going on. But he did know one thing- and that Spike was in serious trouble, more pressing then his MRI scan at the moment.

"ARF ARF ARF ARF!" Ein barked loudly running as fast as his little stubby legs could carry him, growling as he launched across the room towards the Doll.

The poor Doll was NOT prepared for the dog, and when the Corgi started to bark he looked up and shrieked wildly this time losing his balance as he tried to ward off the dog, and ended up stumbling backward, his arm pulling the trigger of the gun.

A loud crack of the bullet leaving the chamber echoed out in the hollow walls, and waking up Spike just as he rolled over shocked at the sound, the bullet embedded into the cushion of the couch not more then four inches from his head.

"WHAT THE HELL!" He yelled, and let out another yell as Ein tackled Spike from where he had leaped over the coffee table, and the Data Dog bounced off of the bounty hunter- flying over the back of the couch and tackling the screaming Doll- all this action making Spike completely tumble off of the couch onto the floor with a THUD!

The Doll tried to scramble away, shrieking like a little girl as the Corgi landed behind him and lunged. The Doll let out another scream and tried to kick at the Dog, but Ein latched his teeth onto his curly elf shoe, and proceeded to try and drag him back, shaking his leg furiously.

He felt like Quinn at the end of the movie Jaws when Jaws was dragging the shark hunter into the ocean!

"Boo hoo hoo! Oh hoo!" He cried, clawing at the ground, crying hysterically as he tried to run away. (How is it everything in his life always went so wrong so quickly so very often?) Ein shook his head from side to side growling as the Dolls leg shook and jingled.

Spike rolled over on the floor- groaning in pain as his head protested the action- but managed to blurrily look up. Underneath the couch from his position he could see Ein trying to rip apart that Interactive Jute Box- and his gun was lying off to the side.

Spike was an ex-member of the Red Dragon gang, and a skilled fighter and had fighter’s instincts. He knew without having to ask questions or think about it that he was being attacked. And since Ein was obviously not the attacker-

Wait a minute? A faster then the eye scan of the room determined that he was the only human in the room.

Tell me that Doll wasn’t the one who shot at me.

Spike didn’t even bother to think about it- despite the insanity of that thought- because he instantly crawled to his feet and jumped over the couch, grabbing his gun from the floor. He whirled around and pointed it directly at the toy- feeling rather ridiculous but logically having no other choice- and cocked the gun.

The screaming Doll instantly froze and looked up at Spike, to find himself staring at the dark barrel inside the gun. He crossed his eyes to look upward at the bounty hunter and gave him a wide-eyed look.

"I’m innocent!" He said instantly.

Aren’t we all?

"I don’t get it." Jet said confused as he flipped to the second page of the fairy tale. "What’s so important in this story that Spike thinks it might help?"

"Maybe Spike-person wants to find a qualified toy maker to help him make a special toy too!" Ed said cheerfully as she did a handstand on Jet’s shoulders.

"Yhay. That’s probably it." Jet said dully, lowering the pages in defeat.

Well, whatever Spike thought he would see in the story he sure as hell couldn’t. (He just did not understand the way Spike’s brain worked.)

He looked when he the ramp passed by the door he needed to go into, and he quickly stepped off the ramp in front of the large doorway and walked through the doors, Edward laughing happily as they left the lower gravity and she ended up hanging off his back like a backpack. Jet practically fell forward with the sudden weight change, but managed to hold onto the wall as he walked.

Jet walked through the large hallway and stepped down the stairs. As he did he felt the pit of his stomach sink. Great. Now he had to tell his friend he was going to end up retarded or dead either which way.

This was not going to be one of his better days.

Jet was carefully organizing the pages as he walked down and turned into the living room area when he looked up with his mouth open to greet Spike and he stopped and stared- his mouth just remaining open at the sight.

Even Edward peered over his shoulder to blink at the sight.

Spike had picked up the helpless Interactive Doll and was strangling it, sitting on the floor as he shook it repeatedly slamming it up against the couch, the Doll shrieking bloody murder from it’s vocal unit box in its throat. He was using the butt of the gun to slam it onto the Doll- causing it to let out little soprano squeaks like a dog toy, as he kicked and shrieked. Ein was behind Spike barking so wildly that he was practically bouncing off the floor with all his hair standing on end.

"RRRRR RARF RARF RARF ARF ARF ARF ARF!"

"…Obnoxious as hell, bad enough to listen to you constant RAMBLING when I’m awake then you try to kill me in my sleep! I’m GOING TO RIP OUT YOU’RE VOCAL BOX AND STRANGEL YOU TO DEATH WITH IT YOU STUPID! INTERACTIVE! PAIN! IN! THE! ASS!" Spike was yelling over the screaming of the doll.

"HE’SINSANE!HELPMEHE’SINSANEHE’STRYINGTOKILLME

HELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPME!!" The Doll was screaming in utter ultra dramatics, pulling at his hat and kicking and screaming like a three-year-old.

"YOU STUPID MINDLESS TOY DIE ALREADY!"

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Jet literally just stood there frozen into paralysis at what had to be the oddest sight he had ever seen. His mouth opened and closed trying to form words, unable to even think or even fathom about what this was all about.

"Uh," He said feeling extremely stupid at the moment for reasons he couldn’t even understand. "Hey Spike?"

"I’m going to kill you slowly! And I- huh?" Spike- who was in the mitts of delivering another blow to the Dolls stomach with the gun, (Even through hitting the toy didn’t seem to be doing much, it made him feel better anyway.) stopped just before he brought the weapon down and looked up to see Jet standing at the last stair holding some paper with Edward and the older Bounty hunter staring at him wide-eyed.

Spike himself blinked back through the yellow lenses, as if he himself couldn’t understand what their problems where.

"Yhay?" He asked curiously.

Jet didn’t have time to continue his inquiry because as soon as Spike was distracted enough to take his attention away from strangling the Doll, that Doll managed to twist and lift his legs to slam them onto his chest with enough force to at least knock him over backward. Spike let out a grunt of surprise, the action sending him backward on his back, enough for the doll to do a comical back flip and he bounced off his hands to jump at Spike.

The doll was laughing as he grabbed onto the gun that fell out of Spike’s grip as the sudden change in his movements blurred his vision due to his screaming mind and the Doll used his momentum to bounce off of Spike’s already hurting head and flew up onto the platform above the couch.

Spike crashed backward onto the floor as Ein barked running over his chest as he chased the doll and Spike lie there stunned at the fact that a mindless TOY had managed to outmaneuver him.

Jet watched the entire scene- still having no idea what was going on and started to walk towards Spike when the younger bounty hunter suddenly sat up with a scream of rage.

"I"LL KILL HIM!" Spike yelled, and clawed his way upright as Spike scrambled to his feet, one hand holding onto his head as he stumbled past Jet to run up the stairs erratically.

"Don’t let it get away!" Spike roared back over his shoulder at Jet as he disappeared down the halls of the Bebop where the Doll had run to- it’s mechanical laughter echoing off the emptiness.

As Spike ran away from the room, leaving it empty with just Jet and Edward. Feeling if not more confused then ever Jet looked to Edward for answers and she just shrugged.

"Uh, okay."

Spike himself had absolutely no idea what this entire thing was about but he had had it up to HERE with everything that had happened to him, and that damn doll was the last straw. He had no idea if it was a multifunction in its matrix or programming but it didn’t matter anymore because he was going to kill it! This was no longer about annoyances or simply the fact that the toy was obnoxious as hell; this was about honor and payback now! (If Spike were going to die it would at least be a bit more glorious then getting shot by Chucky! How utterly degrading was that for a death?)

For once he was glad that Ein was around and barking because the Data dog was chasing the doll and Spike could track where they where going more easily.

As he ran, he ignored the nausea that was in the pit of his stomach from all the throbbing pain in his head- bound and determined to make this thing pay. His left hand searched his pockets for his weapon and he cursed once more as he tore down another corridor when he didn’t find one.

Up ahead of him, the bathroom door slid open with a burst of cigarette smoke and Faye came walking out of the lavatory, cigarette in mouth.

Faye yawned as she paused outside the door in the hallway and she stretched her arms lazily. That was when she heard the loud clomping of shoes on the metal flooring and she turned to the side to see Spike coming charging at her full speed. And by the time she did that, Spike only focused in on her at the last minute and was to uncoordinated due to the device to stop his course.

Faye let out a shriek as Spike collided full force into her and they both went crashing down to the floor. They fell down, both yelling, getting tangled in flailing arms and limbs, as both bounty hunters crashed down onto the floor. Due to Spike’s speed when he hit her they slid about three feet before stopping and Faye was left lying beneath Spike shocked, who lay across her stunned and unsure of what had just happened himself. When he sat up a little on his elbows, holding his burning head, he looked over and saw Faye lying there.

He then remembered his original mission and suddenly Spike sat up and looked down and realized that Faye always kept a gun with her. (Which he needed.) And without thinking much he sat up and grabbed - with a horrified gasp from Faye- her red coat she wore over her and started pawing through the pockets, trying to find that gun.

"Give me you’re gun!" Spike said, but looking back on it after a while he could sorta see how his actions MIGHT be misinterpreted and he might have handled the situation a bit better if he wasn’t in so much pain and so mad.

But he was to hell-bent on getting revenge on that HORRID little toy at the moment to realize that.

Faye let out another surprised shriek as Spike ripped at her coat, not knowing he was looking for her gun.

"YOU PERVERT!" She shrieked outraged and started battling back at him, both of them getting into one wonderful little fight as they rolled around on the metal flooring, Spike trying to get Faye’s weapon- and Faye battling Spike’s OBVIOUS insanity snap.

"Sorry! Sorry! Give me you’re gun!" Spike repeated hurriedly, and yelped when Faye got the upper hand and managing to roll on top of him, pinning him to the ground with her knees, a first full of his green hair in her hands.

But fortunately Spike’s hand was in her pocket where she had her gun holster and he de-holstered her gun and pulled it out triumphantly.

"ARE YOU INSANE!" She roared- and Spike swore her head had grown nine times its natural size as she snarled through fangs.

He just gave her a cheeky grin and held up the gun.

"Thanks!" Spike said to her and before she could do anything he shoved her off of him before she could answer and rolled over, scrambling to his feet as he took off down the hall, leaving Faye on the floor stunned.

Couldn’t one thing in his life go right for once? He just wanted SOMETHING to go right was that just TO MUCH to ask?

He looked behind him and let out another shriek when he saw the Welsh corgi at least three feet behind him and whirled around.

Ein lunged with a snarl, coiling and jumping at him as he turned around. The Doll screamed and ended up falling backward onto the floor and Ein sailed directly over him, crashing into another wall with a yelp.

As Ein slowly sat up shaking his head from the surprising blow, the Doll sat up immediately and looked behind him to see Ein temporarily sitting on the floor stunned in the middle of the cross-corridor. The Doll immediately recognized this golden opportunity to throw off one of his pursuers and he dragged the gun around to carefully balanced it on the floor- leveling it directly at Ein.

The Data dog woozily looked up just as the Doll looped his arm through the trigger loop and jerked back on it, letting out a yelp as the force of the gun knocked him backward onto his butt.

The bullet shot through the air and Ein only realized what was happening too late and by then even a dog couldn’t outrun a bullet. Ein yelped and closed his eyes, expecting to feel pain but all the sudden something crashed into him from the side sending him rolling under whatever had shoved him.

Spike went rolled across the corridor, hugging the Dog to his chest as he slammed back down around the corner from the hall where the Doll was. He let out a grunt of pain as his wounded shoulder ended up getting the brunt of the land, but unlike his head- it was pain he generally dealt with all the time and was accustomed to it.

Feeling bit more focused, Spike rolled upright and dropped a surprised Ein on his right, as he clicked the gun onto automatic- he gave the dog a glace and saw Ein staring at him in doggie surprise.

"Don’t get all mushy. I only saved you because Jet would have had a cow if you got killed." Spike told him and the Data dog barked back.

Spike turned around the corner as the dog stayed behind him and peered around Spike and the bounty hunter began to fire repeatedly at the Doll.

The Doll- who was rubbing his head- let out a girly shriek as bullets began to bit away VERY near and all around him. He scrambled to his feet wailing and stumbled around in circles, letting out shrieks as bullets exploded in front of him- making him jerk about and look comically look like a cartoon character dancing in a Old Mexican Shoot out skit.

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!
BAM!

Click.

Spike jerked the gun back and glared at it, clicking on the trigger with his finger rapidly and only getting that damn clicking sound.

Damnit! The gun was jammed.

He swore and pulled open the chamber, emptying the last few rounds, and reaching into his pants pockets to get more. (His weapon and Faye’s where of the same model, so his ammunition should work with this one.)

The doll remained posed in the air, one foot upward like a ballerina from avoiding gunfire, and he looked around trying to see if more would come. Deciding that non-was thus more coming forward, he was about to run, when Spike came out from around the corner- gun fully re-loaded now- and he aimed it directly at the Doll.

The Dolls bright green eyes widened and he let out another hysterical laugh as he backed up.

"Hey now! I realize that we sort of got off on the wrong foot earlier and due to totally circumstantial situation and slightly yet very much bad looking un-initial timing, you might have gained the wrong impression about me and because I am so committed to this relationship- I would just like to state for the record that I am willing to start over again." The Doll looked at Spike expectantly, looping his hands behind his back as he rocked back and forth on his curly shoes. "What’d say old pal? Old Amigo of mine? Best friend?" He asked semi-hopeful.

To his glee Spike paused a moment, seemingly thinking about that.

Then he looked back at grinned at the Doll.

"Naw. I think I’ll kill you now." He said cheerfully, and the Interactive Doll let out another shriek as Spike pulled the trigger and the Doll ended up doing a weird Pirouette to avoid getting shot, and he screamed running down the hall with his arms flailing behind in him the air, screaming like a banshee drama queen.

"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!"

Spike started to run forward but a fiery pain in his shoulder made him stop and grimace. He lowered the gun and looked at his bandaged shoulder to see that the very light red stain that was barley visible before was now a dark rich red, droplets of blood rolling through the thoroughly soaked dressing. Saving Ein and rolling all over the floor had obviously caused his wound to re-open.

He carefully winced once more as the pain reminded him of the fresh hurt, and Spike reached up to pull at the gauze, unwrapping it to reveal the bullet wound. It was pulpy and ripped open from the stitching with thick blood oozing from it fresh and the bullet wound was burning.

Wonderful.

Just at that moment, as Spike was about to walk forward after the Doll, ignoring his wound- his COM phone on his belt rang and he stopped and un-hooked it from his belt, bringing it up to his ear.

"Yhay?" He asked dully, rotating his shoulder to work out some of the pain.

<<ARE YOU FIRING YOUR GUN IN THE HALLS!?>> Jet’s outraged voice roared through the little speaker, yelling so loudly that Spike actually had to pull his COM phone away from his ear a little bit.

"Uh, yhay." Spike answered, pausing to hold the phone with his shoulder between his ear as he rooted through his pockets for a cigarette.

Spike wasn’t really paying at that much attention to Jet’s yelling but the terms ‘Frigging Idiot’ and ‘Hot headed moronic stunts’ where mentioned and a few other endearments where yelled.

By the time Jet was finished "Venting" Spike had his lighter to the tip of the smoke, and the small flame illuminated and lit the cigarette. He snapped the lighter closed and was tucking it back into his pants pocket, gently breathing out a haze of fresh smoke through from his lungs.

"Ya done?" He asked in his traditional Disinterested-Spike tone of voice.

<<NO! NO! I am NOT done! You->>

"Can you track that stupid toy and find out where it is?" Spike interrupted. With his shoulder and head and blood loss he couldn’t keep running all over the Bebop from room to room for an un-told amount of time.

Besides, he got yelled at by Jet all the time, nothing new ever really surface from it other then the long suffering head aches given to both of them.

Jet sighed over the phone. Then Spike heard the muffling sounds of the COM being shifted and Jet talking over the computer to Edward who must have been in the room with him.

<<Edward, can you track that weird looking technological toy?>>

Spike nodded to himself as he pulled the cigarette from his mouth, and waited calmly. He flicked some ashes off to the side and looked down at his feet to see Ein sitting there staring upward at him.

"Edward can do anything." He told the Data Dog knowingly and he barked back in response.

Suddenly after a moment- Ed came onto his COM phone.

<<HIYA! Edward has found Shrieking-Toy-Thing!>>

"Great. Where is he?" Spike asked, dropping the smoke and crushing it with his shoe on the floor.

<<Tee hee, well Edward had to re-format the Bebop-ship’s internal security sensors for movement because Shrieking-Toy wouldn’t register on the Inferred scans…>>

Spike gave a long suffering sigh, spinning his hand in circles- mentally trying to speed this entire life history of the scan to just try and get the end results.

Bingo!

<<Shrieking-Toy-man is in the ship hanger!>> Edward declared happily.

"YES!" Spike said and instantly clicked his COM phone off, whirling around and running back down the hall- back tracking his route to a short cut to the ship hanger where the Swordfish II, The Redtail, and The Hammer head where housed on the Bebop; Ein not far off behind his heals.

By the time he had gotten to the hanger, he was gasping and nearly collapsed against the wall from exhaustion. His body had gotten very cold along the run and he was feeling very shaky, but so far he had managed to get there.

Leaning against the doorway, Spike took a deep mind cleansing breath and steadied himself. Ein watched him curiously as he straightened up with a grunt of determination and he clicked the gun cartridge onto automatic, his finger slick with blood that was dripping down from his arm. Spike stopped and raised his hand, watching the blood droplets drip onto the floor and sighed.

Double wonderful.

Spike turned and carefully looked around the doorframe into the hanger, his hands clutching the gun securely with a soldier’s veteran experience. His slightly discolored eyes roamed the hanger from the door, going over the possible hiding places for that thing and roaming over the three ships parked inside.

It was relevantly well lit inside, a lot of shadows cast from the ships that blocked the light and was a bit difficult to see. But just because Spike couldn’t see didn’t dampen his hearing abilities. Because of that Dolls stupid costume had a ton of jingling bells on it, whenever it moved it jingled like a sleigh.

Suddenly Ein whined and Spike looked down at the Data Dog to see him looking over in the direction where the Swordfish II was with his ears down. When he followed the dog’s gaze he saw two skinny pairs of legs with curly belled shoes kicking and swinging like wind mill propellers coming from the folded up wing of the ship near the main cockpit window.

Spike grinned slowly, and walked forward brazenly.

The Doll itself had finally managed to crawl fully upright onto the ledge of the wing and stood up. He looked around then down at the Swordfish II and saw the large bubble where the cockpit was and grinned to himself as he rubbed his hands together.

All right! Well time to execute "Emergency-thought-up-on-the-last-minute-plan B". Escaping in one of these oh-so convenient ships here. This was a lot better. This time it would work! And he had to hurry to if that lunatic and his dog caught up with him before he got away or he was toast!

Okay, so he had never ACTUALLY piloted a space ship before but hey? How hard could it be anyway? He had seen it done a lot of times, all you have to do was steer. (Probably some other stuff but he was a fast learner- and didn’t you learn from experience anyway?)
The Doll turned around and laid down on his stomach, wiggling his way over the ledge so that his legs dangled off the lip of the wing, slowly sliding downward and using his outstretched arms and hands as a stopping brake as he slid.

Unfortunately like his ill-fated "Not-very-well-thought-up-off-kill-Spike-and-save-his-own-ass-Plan A", this one wasn’t really all that well through up either because the Swordfish II’s outer hull was made completely of metal and the Doll was only wearing black glove to hold onto the wing with as he slid. Thus- when the poor Doll started sliding down with his legs hanging over the side to fall into the cockpit, his hands slid with squeaky screams and he let out a shriek and ended up sliding off the wing completely, falling down through the air.

Okay Plan B so far really sucked.

But it got him down- if you wanted to look on the bright side of things.

KA-FHWAP!

"GAH!" The Doll yelped as he slammed into the piloting seat with a THUD, and he let out a mousy little squeak of surprise.

Blinking, the Doll looked around and realized that he was in the piloting pit and took a moment to revel in his genius. Then he reached over and pushed one of the buttons on the console and grabbed onto the steering sticks and waited.

Nothing.

The Doll blinked and looked around- wondering why the ship didn’t even turn on. He sat back in the seat and reached over and pushed another button.

Nothing.

Getting severely annoyed, he started to push every button in sight, slamming his fists down on various computer screens and consoles when nothing happened. He then bumped another button and the entire ship screamed at him as what had to be some sort of horn rang out.

EEEEEEEEP!

"YAHY!" The Doll yelled, slamming back into the ships seat as he looked around frantically, trying to determine what had done that. That’s when the Interactive Doll looked up through the front glass and let out a horrified shriek at what he saw.

"EEK!"

Spike stood on the nose of the Swordfish in front of the windshield from where he had climbed up from the side as he peered inside back at the Doll- gun pointed at the window directly at his head. He grinned back and held up something that looked like a key hanging off a chain in his hand.

The Key that activated the ship.

"Yo." Spike said.

The Doll just stared with his mouth hanging open looking very much like a fish confronted with a complicated math problem. He just could not BELIVE how WRONG everything just kept going! This guy had to be either the most un-luckiest person on the face of the planet; or the most persistent human being in the entire galaxy.

And taking one look at him told you it was probably the latter. Spike’s expression was cocky but worn, and he was very pale with a light sheen of sweat- hardly noticeable from all the blood that was covered all over his chest and arm. He was breathing raggedly, but he still appeared to be very strong because he was holding the weapon at him level without shaking, total clarity in his eyes.

Spike’s thumb cocked the hammer and the Doll knew he was toast if he didn’t do something. But he had kinda gotten himself stuck in a hole being in the piloting pit- and he couldn’t run away fast enough. So he just did what he did best.

Ramble.

"You can’t kill me! I got rights you know!" He said hurriedly.

"What right? The right to be obnoxious? You’ve already beaten that one to death so you no longer HAVE that right." Spike said irritably.

"Human rights! I call sanctuary!" The Doll declared proudly, like he was founding a new country and folded his arms in front of his chest defiantly and he stuck his tongue out at him- proud that he had come up with something so brilliant.

"Dose this look like a church?" Spike demanded. "A priest is the only one who can grant you asylum and the only way you’re seeing a priest is at the funeral home when you go there with a quarter sized hole where you nose use to be!" He announced firmly then suddenly flared as he glared at the Doll. "Why the hell are we ever talking about this?" He snapped and aimed the gun, his finger tightening on the trigger.

That’s when the Doll realized that this was VERY serious. Not that Spike was going to damage and maybe kill him, but that there was no way out if this by running. Spike was or seemed to be any INCREDIBLY strong if he was this hurt and still going.

Maybe this was the guy that could help him.

He DID have the Recorder on his head after all.

"WAIT!" The Doll cried out throwing his hands out in front of his face. "Really, please don’t kill me! I can help you with the device!"

THAT made Spike stop as he faltered and blinked in surprise as the gun lowered.

"What?" He demanded.

Seeing that he had gotten his attention seriously, the Doll meekly peeked through his fingers and saw Spike staring at him. He straightened up and blinked back at the bounty hunter.

"Isn’t you’re head KILLING you?" He asked. It had to have. The Recorder from his knowledge of it was designed to have the host be unconscious through out the entire Brain Warp. Yet Spike was standing and walking and talking lucidly. He still had to have been in a great deal of excruciating pain though. An unbearable amount of pain.

And the hesitant expression on his face told him that he was right on the mark.

"My head hurts." He confirmed hesitantly.

"I know why!" The Doll said quickly. "And what the device dose! I can help you a lot you know! You just have to not kill me!"

Okay, this was a VERY "Last-minute-not-well-thought-out-Plan C", and if it didn’t work he was only left with Plan D. (Plan D being DEAD! Which was something he really did not want to try permanently just yet.)

Spike frowned deeper and lowered the gun- but not re-holstering it and in his hand and ready to fire as he pondered this strange development.

Tough choice really. On one hand Spike REALLY wanted to just polish this toy off and be done with it, but on the other hand his head was so absolutely horribly throbbing with unimaginable pain that he wanted this thing STOPPED. By stopping and now everything being relevantly calm, all the pain and wariness was coming back to him. It was excruciating.

But believing this Interactive Doll was like believing a three-timed confessed serial killer of a fourth murder that had a confession, video of the crime and physical evidence while that Killer said, "I didn’t do it! I’m innocent!"

And another thought came to him.

"How the hell would you even know about anything concerning this device?" Spike demanded.

The Doll blinked at him, then realized that Spike really didn’t know what he was opening when he opened the case. The suspicious look on his features was conformation of that.

"Because I belong to the Council of Wizards." The Doll told him blinking.

"Because I AM a wizard."

| Bongo music starts to play. |

The business itself was one of the rare ones that had stayed above ground, un-like a lot of the other Earth people, who migrated under ground to avoid the rock showers. This store was located very near the cities abandoned airport, its large looming building erected from a war-torn hanger. It looked broken, the small office building near the front of the hanger being the only relevantly suitable for human existence.

Inside, that office itself was dark since Nigel’s was closed, but in the large and looming main hanger Marty Bens was working on the inside of an old Model L cargo ship, his legs sticking out from underneath it as he was lying there on a wheeled board working to clean out the engine from the bottom.

At age seventeen, Marty had managed to scrounge up the job of mechanical restorer- meaning that he restored the battered old ships and updated them for modern day use. He never failed to notice how out of all five employees that worked at Nigel’s he was the only one that ever put in the overtime on these old ships.

Like any other teenager it was normal to be fascinated by machines- like cars and airplanes and space ships or such other. But Marty didn’t look at the ships he restored as simply a job or teenage worship. What he did was art- and like all artists you worked you’re blood into what you where doing and put you’re entire soul into it.

Marty sighed, and lifted up the metal goggles from over his bright green eyes and looked upward at the engine he was cleaning out, shaking his blond hair free of metal dust. He winced as he looked down at his thin arms, seeing the black sludge that had gunked up his outfit and body and sighed- the putrid smell of whatever rot had gathered inside seeping out to him.

But it would be worth it.

The Model L may have been a huge clunky ship compared to some of the faster races he had worked on before but that’s why he liked this one. It was different and overlooked, like himself, and had many other qualities that where not available to any other ships. The cargo ship could haul up to ninety thousands tons through any storm and had been used many times in ISSP military runs because of it’s almost tank like abilities.

The Model L had been discontinued forty years ago, and the one that Marty was working on was the only intact ship left.

The mechanic sighed and grabbed onto the coils, pushing himself out from underneath the close low underside of the engines, and slid out to clean up and go home to visit Lenore- his girlfriend.

But suddenly when he slid out he looked up to have two men staring down at him.

Marty gave a start, then blinked in surprise focusing in through the lights to see the man. He was tall, garbed in a dark blue hood and cape over his black tunic. With black boots that stopped at his knees, and wearing black leather gloves, he hand resting on his hip, the other loosely held at his side.

Bright red eyes looked down at him cool and controlled.

"Uh, hey." Marty said uneasily- thrown off by the stance and demeanor that the mysterious man held. He was so still and cool that it was obvious that he was in total control of his body and that he could do some damage if he wanted. Marty wondered if the man was on Red Eye because of the color of his eyes but his aura threw off the drug theory. He was to controlled to be taking drugs.

The other one was as controlled. Wearing a dark blue cloak- the hood revealing lower facial features as fine as a porcelain dolls and dark navy blue eyes as deep as a abyss in the night ocean looked at him without much expression. Both his arms where folded in front of him calmly.

"Are you Martin Bens?" Merlin asked quietly as he peered down through his darkened hood at the simple mechanic- covered in black grim and slime wearing a torn and grubby dark green jumpsuit.

"Uh, yhay. Folks call me Marty." Marty said, shifting as he rolled away from the unknown Wizard and he slowly pushed up, getting to his feet.

To his surprise instead of saying anything more, Merlin turned away from him and walked towards the tool table slowly as Marty blinked and leaned back against the Model L. Oberon- the other man- remained where he was, watching Marty.

"Can I help you two sirs? We’re closed, but if you come back to-" Marty started.

"I have a friend." Merlin said softly, the sudden quiet allure of his voice stopping Marty from completing his sentence. He blinked again and watched as Merlin turned back around and leaned against the lip of the table.

"He’s a brother of mine. And a computer hacker." Merlin said to him. "We are looking for a ship- the Bebop. He found the name of the ship and ran a search through the Earth’s computer network and discovered a registration order to here, to a Martin Bens."

Marty stared. He did indeed get an order for new heating coils to be delivered to a Jet Black for a recently re-done old space Fishing Trawl, named the Bebop. Not everyone knew but Marty sometimes did specialty work on the side as a side business, and it shamed him to admit it, but he had wanted to do this job for himself so he hadn’t told his boss about the call. (But he had to this time! He planed on proposing to Lenore and the ring he wanted to give her was very expensive. He had saved nearly all the money for it and doing to rest of the Bebop job would complete his savings for it.)

But for his side jobs, Marty didn’t keep the information on the computer because of hackers. He kept most of the information the old way- in paper files in his work locker.

The apparently for an experienced hacker the original call was still on the phone record.

"I-I…" Marty stuttered, not entirely sure what to say. Whoever these guys where they where very serious, and he wasn’t sure of what to say this time.

"Where are the heating coils to be delivered?" Oberon asked Marty directly, starling the mechanic for he had been silent nearly all this time.

Marty frowned. While stealing the job may not have been ethical- he did have his own code of client confidentiality. He didn’t want to get in trouble with these guys by not telling them, but he also felt it was his duty to kept out of whatever problems Mr. Black must have himself in and not get in the middle.

"I can’t tell you that." Marty said, backing up a little bit unconsciously as his hand pulled a red cloth from his back pants pockets and wrung his hands on it nervously. Oberon’s red eyes flickered down at his hands- and noticed, but didn’t give that away.

Merlin didn’t reveal anything as he looked at the mechanic coolly.

"Listen, I just don’t want to get in the middle of anything or be responsible for something because I said something I shouldn’t have. I really can’t tell you." Marty said, mentally kicking himself at how whiney he sounded.

Before he could say anything else, Oberon stepped forward in front of Marty, crowding him a bit as he loomed over him. His control never slipped, but Marty instantly tried to back up as he felt fear tingle up his spine and Oberon’s hand slammed to the side of his head, pining him with his arm as Marty let out a surprised yelp.

Oberon leaned in close to whisper in his ear.

"Please tell us." He breathed calmly.

Marty knew he was in trouble now. They hadn’t hurt him or anything, but it was obvious they had no problem doing so. And he was very scared. Oberon’s entire aura was icy cold, and that of a killers and Marty was shaking now. The movement had shifted Oberon’s cloak and he could see the holster of a gun underneath his outfit.

Suddenly Merlin pushed off the table, and walked over to Oberon and Marty silently like a ghost. He reached up and rested his hand on Oberon’s arm in a silent order, and the Wizard gave his leader a cool look before releasing his hand off the ship, and moving back a little, leaving Marty to crash back down onto the floor where his knees wouldn’t hold up anymore.

Merlin knelt down in front of him, his dark blue demon eyes looking at him softly.

"Our quarrel is with the crew of the Bebop. All we wish is their address, nothing more of you. They stole something of great importance to us and someone dear to us. All we want is both of them returned safely. Please tell us."

Marty stared at Merlin confused, still afraid. But at least Merlin didn’t seem as cold blooded as his associate, and he even seemed a little…sincere.

He wasn’t sure whether or not to believe them about the Bebop crew stealing something of theirs, but his voice was soft and quiet- like the that of one who had lost someone dear to them by either death or kidnapping.

And Jet Black WAS a bounty hunter. Marty knew that sometimes Cowboy’s went to extreme measures to catch their bounties.

Aw man. Screw personal ethics, he would just get another job to pay for the ring. It wasn’t worth losing his life over.

"I’m supposed to deliver the coils to the Angel Reef bay down at the old sea docks, Pier 33." Marty said, despite his choice- still feeling like he had betrayed someone by doing this. He didn’t like any of this but he still was too afraid to stand up for himself. Marty had never been good at that. At school he had always gotten beat up- and he never defended himself then.

He certainly couldn’t do it now against these guys.

To his relief Merlin didn’t say anything, just nodded.

"Thank you." He said, and he rose up straightening upright and looked at Oberon. "Let’s go."

Marty remained on the floor still shaking slightly from the encounter as Merlin walked away from him towards the opening of the hanger, Oberon giving Marty one last fleeting glance as he turned and followed his leader.

For a moment, as he watched their retreating forms, Marty waited then breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t feel proud of what he had just done, but the adrenaline in his system made him feel alive, like escaping from a car accident with you’re life and you where un-hurt.

Slowly he reached up and grabbed onto the metal hull, pulling himself up to his own feet. He gritted his teeth annoyed with his behavior and rubber spine, and decided there and then that maybe he should call up Jet Black and tell him that he had told someone where his ship was. He didn’t want to be the one that go anyone killed, forget losing the job; a ring wasn’t worth getting people killed over.

Marty turned around and threw the rag into a pail of oil that he had been using the clean out the Model L’s engines with and started to walk around the ship to head to the locker room.

Then died.

Marty didn’t even have a chance to understand that he did so. Before he even took another step, a loud crack of a bullet echoed like thunder all in the hanger and the bullet slammed like hot lead into his temple, blood exploding out of his wound as he pitched forward and slammed into the ship with a bloody splat- now without another heartbeat in him. Is lifeless body crashed down onto the cement ground and landed into a puddle of ship grim like trash.

Oberon stood at the entrance of the hanger, and he lowered his weapon as he turned to look at Merlin- the latter of whom had turned around at the sound of the shot and the leader raised an eyebrow, a apologetic shadow of a expression over his features as his dark blue eyes looked at Marty lying there in blood.

"Nothing more of you." He said quietly.

Oberon raised an eyebrow at Merlin’s apologetic look, but it passed over so quickly he wasn’t even sure he had seen it. The older Wizard’s expression turned cool again and he turned back around with a whirl of his cape and walked back towards the black car as Oberon followed him- sliding the gun back into his cloak.

One hundred yards away from the hanger, the black sleek car was waiting parked; two other associate’s- Jonathan and Aries- and leaning against the hood, guarding the car as they waited. They straightened up and as Merlin approached and Aries stood up, walking over to the back of the cart and he opened if for Merlin, the back door opening and Gandolf was revealed to be waiting calmly in the back, his computer goggles blocking his wolf eyes as he waited with his arms folded over him chest.

Merlin climbed into the back of the car, Oberon coming in behind him, Jonathan walking around to get in the drivers seat.

"Did you get into some trouble?" Gandolf asked referring to the shot he had mutely heard- sounding vaguely amused as he looked up from the computerized world he was in, to peer through the lenses at Merlin as he settled in the seat in front of him, pulling his cape around his legs.

"Life is a game of chess Gandolf." Merlin told him quietly. "Sometimes pieces that stand in the way of the king have to be killed."

"Life is war." Gandolf informed him.

How true.

Merlin remained silent as he looked out the window towards the hanger, contemplating his brother’s statement, listening to the hum of the cars engines as it started up.

In chess it was a game and no one got hurt, for the pieces where plastic and inanimate.

In War everyone died for that game was played by people.

Perhaps this was war.

Inside the hanger, Marty Bens still lay forever on the floor as the roar of the car leaving the parking lot dimly was heard, but another casualty of that war because of the innocent knowledge he held.

But he heard nothing and never would again.

And Marty had died, still wondering how he was going to pay for the ring of his girlfriend that he had hoped to marry.

This time he understood that he was, as he floated through the haze of his mind cool and light as mist. But this time it was different, instead of the strange out of body experience that he felt the first time- Spike wasn’t nearly that free.

Instead, he watched through the lenses themselves instead of his eyes as the device around his head recorded and feed the imagery to his ever-active brain, even though his conscious mind may not be fully aware and registering it. Instead of being free to move around inside his mind, he could literally feel like he was tied down and just able to shift about, and all he could do is watch. Through a foggy bright wall of data that was brightly whirling past his brain like lighting streaking the sky.

His ‘vision’ shifted as the lenses vocal point changed, the brightly lit data field bending and shifting and he watched as it bended into a fishbowl view to reveal Jet off to the side in a camera filtered view- sitting on the edge of the coffee table, hovering over Spike as he carefully wrapped white gauze around his re-wounded shoulder. The data pin pointed his wound and told him that his shoulder was damaged once more, the internal recorded scans of his anatomy blinking the wounded area more for it’s own notes.

Once more the camera filtered vision shifted as it scanned his surroundings, and he noted to himself and the device took note that he was in the living room area of the Bebop- lying on the couch wounded again. A movement above him shifted his attention, and he looked at the light bulb that was hanging from the slow and lazy ceiling fan, he could see a more wide angled view of the room in the distorted reflection of the bulb.

The devices lens focused in on the bulb and dissolved away all the disorientated in the reflection, magnifying it to see more clearly.

Spike could see through the camera eyes that Faye was sitting on the coffee table as well, sitting on the old dog cage- called a ‘Kennel’ that Jet put Ein in when he had to take the Data Dog to the vet. The huntress was fiddling with the charred briefcase that Spike had opened earlier that day. The vision shifted and behind her Edward and Ein sat on the chair, Edward happily throwing up a yelping Ein as she typed on the keyboard with her toes on some program only she knew of.

Spike frowned mentally, wanting to go though the veil of bright glowing fog in front of him, to wake up and join the rest of them.

He tried to move his consciousness through the muddy grounds of his brain, and his mind bent or almost felt like it folded with the attempt. It didn’t hurt but it restrained his movements and he found that so he couldn’t go forward. When he concentrated, trying to forcefully push through the fog- the brightly glowing mist suddenly grew brighter with the resistance. As it did, the light flashed in a warning- to keep him where he was, trapped and not in control.

This wasn’t like last time. When he was trapped in this…place before, he had met resistance but pushed through it. This time whatever had been done and was still being done to his brain had grown and weaved even stronger resistances. By the time he fell back from the light, he was exhausted so badly that he felt like slipping even farther away.

Sheer will kept him where he was.

Wherever that was.

So, Spike took a deep mental breath and closed his virtual ‘vision’ gathering up all his will and force and pushed with everything inside him that made him Spike Spiegel, bounty hunter and stubborn hot-headed guy he was.

As his will clashed with whatever web had weaved over his consciousness, Spike ignored the bright flash of light and this time felt very REAL pain start to flare up around him. Like a shuttle coming into the Earth’s atmosphere and burning up.

It was also so badly, he thought he was dying. Not his body but his own conciseness’ and being.

The device beeped and protested his stubborn will to awaken from his technologically induced sleep, but Spike had had it and was not having any of it. The pain was a threat, and death was starting to inch its way towards him in a black fog.

/"Whatever happens happens."/ Spike thought to himself- for the first time clearly, and he realized that with that though he could think more clearly. He was winging his battle to awaken, and he this time shoved, through the data wall, ripping free and suddenly falling through his mind.

And once again crashed head first into awareness.

This time however, the severity of whatever the device was doing to him was more sever and he didn’t snap away like last time. Instead he woke up, but found his entire body so exhausted he didn’t even have the energy to open his eyes. But he knew he was awake because he could feel he was lying on the plastic couch of the living room, the cool breeze of the lazy fan lapping over him like waves. His shoulder felt tight- tightly bandaged in new dressing- and around the wound Spike could feel tiny pins and needles stabbing at him, but it didn’t bother him. (It was actually a good sensation. It meant his wound was healing.)

Spike could feel the presence of someone hovering over him, and felt the last of the gauze around his shoulder being tied around him shoulder and somehow knew Jet was finishing off doctoring the re-opened gunshot wound.

"You can lock me up in this oppressed fashion in the fascist attempts to silence my cries in the hopes to mute TRUE JUSTICE! But know this my captors, for never in the galaxy will this mere cage hold me prisoner. For the soul is my true body and these binds of metal and rope can never hold down the sheer life force of SOUL AND WILL! So lock me away as it is you’re will, silence my cries and steal the ability to have anyone hear my voice- but you can never. EVER! TAKE! MY! FREEEEEEDOOOOOM!"

Spike mentally groaned behind his closed eyes as the Doll dramatic ramblings where bellowed out in a rendition that Shakespeare would have been proud of.

Spike couldn’t exactly remembered what had happened but he knew that already he was feeling the edges of that white light of data singing at the edges of his mind. He knew that he had to wake up fully before he slipped back under- although with that Doll there it was a bit of a difficult choice.

But Spike gathered up all his strength and forced himself to opened his eyes, only succeeding in at least opening them a crack. As soon as the dull lighting of the living room his eyes, it burned and he moaned from the un-expected pain and twisted his head to the side. With his head buried in the back of the couch he tried opening his eyes again, this time to the dull yellow of the cushions and the pain that literally felt like it was being stabbed into his brain was just as sever but didn’t hurt his eyes as badly. Almost like it was responding to his internal thoughts- the yellow lenses over his eyes darkened to a near dark yellow that dulled all the light, and the pain in his eyes, allowed him to turned over slight to face all the lighting of the living room.

When he rolled over a little he looked up to see Jet standing over him peered down at the bounty hunter through the dark yellowness.

"How are you feeling?" Jet asked in the same tone he always got when the ‘Children’ hurt themselves again. (In other words nothing new and no surprise.)

Spike blinked behind the dark lenses and slowly looked around the room. He noticed that Faye was sitting on the coffee table on that kennel; her attention at him as she stared at him as well- the briefcase she was holding that Spike had opened was in her lap.

When Spike’s slightly discolored eyes drifted over to the chair across the coffee table he saw a head of wild orange hair bobbing about behind Edward’s computer ‘Tomato’ that had Ein sitting on that hair. And when Jet spoke all the sudden Ed’s face popped up, and her goggles oggaled at him.

Oh. Terrific. The whole deranged ‘Family" is hear.

Everyone wanted to hear this one.

"Like shit." Spike informed Jet truthfully.

Jet snorted and turned away to pick up the rest of the bloody first aid medicines and bandages he had used to change the dressing on Spike’s shoulder as Spike saw Faye shake her head over Jet’s shoulder.

"You know, when you bleed so much as to actually pass out that MIGHT be you’re bodies way of trying to tell you that you might want to stop and rest." Faye added- sounding slightly amused at mans apparent stubbornness.

"It’s a mere fact of mind over matter my dear." Spike answered back sagely. "If my mind tells my body that I’m okay, then I’m really fine."

Jet paused his cleaning up and have his partner a pitting look. Spike did pass out when he got back to the living room; maybe that was his MINDS way of trying to tell him that he AND his body needed to rest.

Although he had to hand it to his partner, Spike sure was a determined guy. Spike had lost a lot of blood when he re-opened his wound and when he came back to the living room he practically fell on top of Edward when he gave the doll to Jet, then he passed out.

"What happened?" Spike asked, running his hand through his hair, as he looked around confused. He remembered running and catching that retched little toy, but past that it was a blank.

"You attacked me!" The computerized voice suddenly piped up, and Spike looked down and for the first time noticed that the Interactive Doll was inside- locked- into Ein’s dog Kennel under Faye. He was gripping the wire cage door and bouncing, rattling the door dramatically. "It was a highly vicious and un-provoked attack upon my personal character and I’ll sue!"

Suddenly it all came back to Spike in a rush of memory.

"Like hell! It was a justifiable attack to defend against an attempted murder- oh what the hell am I talking about?" Spike groaned as he shook his head at the stupidity of it all.

He was arguing with a Doll!

At what point dose one realize that their life is so off track that therapy is needed?

"You managed to tie up the…whatever that thing is," Jet explained as he motioned to the Doll. "You used one of the weapons nets to tie him up with and managed to drag him and your sorry self back to the living room before passing out."

"Why didn’t you just kill it? It’s really annoying." Faye said as she kicked the cage of the door and the Doll yelped falling backward.

"Because he knows answers that I need." Spike answered back dully, recalling his rather blurry conversation with the doll.

"Because I belong to the Council of Wizards."

"Because I am a Wizard."

"Answers?" Jet asked, looking over at the doll dubiously, the latter of whom gave him a dippy grin through the bars. "It’s just a toy Spike." His partner reminded him.

"Hey! For your information, I HAPPENED to be a very sophisticated piece of new found technology. Thee grandest thing to come out of human imagination since Mickey Mouse!" The Doll called from inside the Kennel.

"Mickey Mouse was a rat and so are you." Spike growled annoyed.

"No, he wasn’t. He was ORIGINALLY a rat but they made him into a mouse. Hence then name or they would have called him Mickey Rat." The Doll chirped out that bit of information just to be annoying.

It worked.

Spike clenched his fists and opened his mouth to un-doubly to give some sort of death threat or some other wonderful term of endearment when Jet raised his hands to ward off the argument.

"BEFORE we start arguing, can we PLEASE get some answers here?" Jet demanded. He looked at Spike. "The Doll came from the briefcase?" The older bounty hunter asked.

Spike blinked in surprise. "Uh, yhay- how’d you know that?"

"Next time you want to be nosey and look into other people’s belongings, don’t leave them lying on the ground with you’re weapons ammunition holes shot through them." Jet grumbled, motioning to the sooty briefcase Faye was resting her elbows on.

Spike winced at that and looked back at the ceiling fan for a moment. Normally when he stole something or did something he didn’t want anyone finding out about he didn’t leave the evidence lying around to be found like he had done by just dumping the case on the ground and forgetting about it completely.

Unfortunately with everything on and IN his mind, he had forgotten about the case.

"I was going to run some scans on the case to find out if it had something dangerous inside or some sort of bomb before SHOOTING it open." Jet grumbled but Spike just mimicked his "forced friends" expression and mirrored his dippy grin, faking innocence.

"This briefcase belongs to the Council of Wizards?" Faye asked surprised, lifting her hands from her chin to blink at the other two hunters.

"Yhay." Jet said, snapping the first aid kit closed and locking it back up. "Oberon was carrying it and I picked it up when I took Spike back to the ship. Thought there might be some money in it or something worth of value."

"There was something of value!" The Doll chirped. "Me!"

"You’re hardly worth the time of day." Spike snorted in disbelief to the cage.

"I wouldn’t be laughing pal! You and I are now in the same boat. And I can assure you that I am worth more woulong in the galaxy then nine-thousand lifetimes of bounties" The Doll said proudly and folded his arm over his chest- sticking his tongue out at Spike from behind the door.

"Dose that mean Spike’s worth that much?" Faye asked in disbelief- and they also recognized that familiar glint she got in her eye when a large amount of money was at stake.

"FAYE!"

"Well I was just curious." Faye said, waving them off with a wave of her hand like they where bugs.

"As long as he’s got that head of his with the Recorder on it and he’s alive he worth just as much as me." The doll said inside the cage.

"Why? I didn’t do anything." Spike said.

"No, you didn’t but Puck did."

"What did he do?" Jet asked, setting the kit down as he turned his full attention to the bottom of the cage. So far he had had absolutely no luck in trying to identify or find a…cure or whatever for that weird device rooted in Spike’s brain. But as insane as this entire situation was the Doll seemed to know something. (That in itself weird.)

"Let me out and I’ll tell you!" The Doll said brightly, pulling at the door.

Nobody moved to open the cage door and all he got pitied looks.

"Is that a no?"

"It’s a ‘Tell-or-die’" Spike warned.

Well, okay. Spike HAD given him the benefit of the doubt previously, and he DID let him live and didn’t shoot him on the spot and in the end MIGHT help him so the Doll figured he’s give them the benefit of the doubt this time.

The Doll sighed behind the bars.

"Okay, okay. The truth is that the reason I was in the briefcase was because I belong to the Council of Wizards."

"You said you WHERE a Wizard." Spike corrected.

Edward’s head suddenly popped up form behind Tomato as she observed the conversation curiously.

"How is that possible? You’re a program." Jet interrupted, already feeling the tingling inside his brain that said he was going to get one HELL of a headache from this entire explanation and situation.

"I WAS a Wizard. Thee original Wizard and leader of the Council of Wizards and creator of that gang, which was originally a council of four members until recently. There was Merlin- who was second in command to the leader. Oberon- Merlin apprentice who was taken in the group because of his weapon and past syndicate experience. And Gandolf- the most recent recruit to sit directly in the fourth chair and a brilliant computer hacker.

"The first and original Member was not to begin with a Wizard but a King, King Arthur." The Doll said, sitting back on his puffy waist cushion around his waist as he watched everyone from behind the bars over his curly shoes. "King Arthur was the one to create and recruit the entire Council.

"Wait a minute! You telling us that the leader of the Council of Wizards is some sort of artificial intelligence? A AI?" Faye asked.

"That actually would make sense." Spike commented to himself- but unknowingly spoke out loud as he pondered that. "You said it yourself Jet that nobody ever actually KNEW what King Arthur looked like or even if he was real."

"I wasn’t and are not AI, nor am I computer programmed program. I was a flesh and blood full bodied human before I…got this touching makeover." The Doll said, pulling at the end of his sleeve to look at it.

"I lead the Council of Wizards for nearly four years, until I had gotten ill. I was diagnosed with cancer and only given three months to live. By that time we had hired Willis Marrow- a computer hacker friend of mine before Gandolf was recruited- to program and create various weapons and programs that we where selling to the Syndicates.

Spike remained silent as he pondered this. THAT was what Puck had been trying to tell him! The Councils ‘Associates’ where just to close for Puck to remain there and explain all this to Spike so he gave him a hint by reference to the story as a clue.

"Why did they put you in THAT body?" Spike asked incredulously.

"It’s a TEMPORARY body." The Doll said as he wiped his gloved hands on his sleeve, ringing it in his fist nervously.

"Wait a minute!" Jet interrupted. "After ALL Of this body hopping around you’re STILL dying?"

"Well not technically. If I were to be downloaded into the main computer network and live out the rest of my days in there, then I would live. I just can’t live in this-" The Doll knocked on his head. "Body. The technology used to create the brain in here-" He knocked on his head with both hands this time. "Is just too small. Everything you can come up with is to small for such a complex program except in the huge and vast ocean of the main network."

"And I was happy with that! I most CERTAINLY did not want to become some sort of technological program- I was content just dying naturally, but they did the procedure without my consent so I couldn’t do anything about it so I thought I just might live inside the computer. But, as much as I may have wanted to just live inside the computer network- the Council didn’t WANT a computer for a leader they wanted Arthur." Suddenly the Doll grinned cheerfully and shoved his arm through on the holes in the cage door to point at a surprised Spike.

"And they got one!"

"Excuse me?" Spike cried out outraged and almost as to remind him, the lenses brightened to a lighter yellow at his shock. "Not a Council member here? I’m a Cowboy, not…you."

"No difference now pal. You see, now you’re in possession of the final stage of my ‘resurrection’ so to speak. That head worn nightlight around you’re head just isn’t for looks you know, it was designed to be the completion of my transfer."

"Say what?" Faye demanded. "But you already where transferred. You’re what you are now."

"Yhay. Program in a technologically created body that no different from a holding jar. I told you they wanted Arthur- the HUMAN- not a program to lead them."

"But the King didn’t want to BE a doll so the Council decided to make him into a living person again. But in order to do that they needed a special talisman that would give the King a body, but in order to do that they needed to get that talisman from a Knight."

"You. The Knight they need to get the talisman back from is you."

Almost an unconscious gesture, Spike’s hand fluttered up to the foreign device around his head and his fingertips trailed along the edges of the nodes where the needles injected into his temple.

"What exactly dose this do?" He asked slowly.

"It’s a like a transfer conduit for a human brain!" Jet exclaimed.

"Or a VCR!" Edward exclaimed, and everyone turned to look at the Earth Hacker. "A VCR records television shows onto a tape. The Device itself is the VCR, Arthur’s AI program being the show and Spike-persons brain being the tape!"

"Bingo sweet-cakes! Hence then name, The Recorder." The Doll agreed nodding.

"That’s not all it’s doing though." Jet interrupted, his thoughts going to the MRI scan of Spike’s horribly mutated mind. "It’s…warping his brain."

"It is?" Spike asked in surprise as he looked from one person to another. For the briefest second he had a flash back of being unconscious and floating in white- but it was like blinking and it was gone. He shook his head, and rubbed at the wounds on his temples, ignoring the blood that pierced and slicked his fingertips.

"YEP!" Edward said before Jet could stop and explain it a BIT more gently, and the hacker did a flip out of her chair to land on the coffee table, bringing her computer with her. Jet fell off the table completely with a yelp of surprise as she did a handstand and threw Tomato into the air, flipping twice more before standing and catching it.

When Edward turned her computer around to show everyone, Spike’s MRI scan was being shown on the screen.

"An AI needs a specially designed base template before it’s programming can begin unlike normal programs. The template is specially programmed so that the rest of the specifically designed AI can be built or downloaded onto it." Edward explained in full-computer mode. Without even needing to look her fingers flew across the keyboard and another image of that very template she was explaining about clicked onto the screen and she pointed at it.

"This is a raw base template for a AI program." She explained, then pressed a button and the two images- the template and Spike’s brain scan- overlapped over one another.

They where identical.

Each image was superimposed over the other to show the match. Spike’s brain warping matched a baseline template for an AI program. The MRI had been taken a day and a half ago and what had been warped of his brain so far fit the scan like a perfect match. The threads that weaved over Spike’s brain and the discoloration fit the template perfectly.

"Tee hee, Edward saw scan on bridge but forgot because Ed had to look up story for Spike-nightlight head!" She said giggling. "Ein’s Data-doggie’s own brain is like this." She explained and Ein barked, shaking his head in agreement.

"That’s what my brain looks like!" Spike said in disbelief. Death and bodily harm did not frighten him at all, but that scan looked… so horrible!

"Of course." The Doll said. "You can’t just suddenly download a AI program into a organic brain, they’re too different and complex to correspond. It’s not like downloading programs, which are simply absorbed by the brain; this is an entirely new intelligence we’re talking about here! If you did that it would like trying to mate a mouse with a bear.

"Turning a mouse into a bear." Jet said nodding.

"But what happened to me?" Spike asked, glaring at the Doll. "Like you said you can’t just cram two intelligences into one body."

"Nope!" The Doll said rocking back and forth as he pulled at his shoes. "The Brain Warp is keeping you’re body functioning, but YOU are slowly being lost in the warp. It’s like having a knife slowly slice through you’re brainstem while you’re on life-support to keep you breathing."

"Feels like it to." He muttered. "And when the brain warp is done, and I- Spike- and completely brain dead- that leave room for you to download into me because my brain is now the base template for a AI- you." Spike said slowly. "No more Spike, because now there’s only the AI in my brain with AND you have my body."

"When we interrupted the entire thing." Jet said slowly. "And when Spike caught up to him, he put the device into Spike."

"The device was only meant to be used once because that’s all the power it has. Because you are Cowboy’s THIS is you’re home." The Doll motioned wildly, all around the walls of the Kennel but in the universal gesture of the Bebop. "He saw you fight Oberon and WIN, and because you’re always on the run probably thought that the Council would never find you. At least until the brain warp was complete. If the program isn’t recorder into the brain in a certain amount of time then the person WILL die. Just slip away into nothing and remain in coma for the rest of you’re life."

FLASH

/"Whatever happens. Happens."/

"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" Spike said, waving his hands and he tried to sit up a little higher as he glared, trying very hard to shake off the weird sense of daja-vu. "All this amounts to is me dying and YOU getting my body and living again. If that’s the case, why the hell did you try to kill me?" He demanded.

Arthur blinked and shut his mouth, trying to think of a way to word this properly.

"Ah, a ha ha! Well…" The Doll said, fidgeting. "You see, the Recorder RECORDS my programming into you. It just creates another copy. The program in THIS body," The Doll tugged at his sleeve. "Will just fade away to nothing, and the Council was just going to destroy me after the copy was complete. I didn’t even want to BE in this position in the first place- what the hell would be the point of having an exact copy of yourself in every detail right down to the last thought. That’s a tad bit on the redundant side. An exact clone of me? A copy isn’t TRULY me I’m the original copy but I would just fade away. It would like trying to image yourself without any memories of you’re past life in a completely different life. It’s you but it’s not. It’s not a real me, it’s a reflection. A image of you but not truly what you original where."

"Self-preservation?" Spike asked. "You tried to kill me because you didn’t want to die after the copy of you was made into me?"

"Yep. More complicated huh? I TRIED to get close to you to kill you by trying to be you’re friend in that happy clueless toy way so that you would never see it coming, but unforeseeable circumstances arose thus I was unable to complete my original goal." The doll said, puffing up slightly.

Yhay, Spike’s heart was really bleeding over that one.

But inwardly his chest felt heavy with this new development. Death and harm never scared him but this was something entirely new. Erasing his entire existence…and now- deep within the recesses of him mind, he could feel that bright wall of engulfing data hovering and growing on the edges of his brain eagerly awaiting to destroy him completely.

And what was more frightening was the tired fatigue that was causing his eyes to drop and close slightly. He was beginning to realize that the last two times he had awoken up where out of sheer will, and each time he lost himself in sleep in his mind Spike knew he probably wouldn’t come back.

He frowned when he felt the oozing red liquid seeping from his temples to begin to drip down his face. His blood was cold, and un-natural feeling- like an eerie premonition.

If he died in his mind but his body remained alive and possessed by something else did that make him a demon? Or a Zombie?

One thing was for sure it was an unnatural death that he certainly had no hopes in taking part in.

"But it’s a good thing that I did end up with you guys. Now that we’re in space the Council won’t be able to find me and you. Well, for a while anyway." The Doll said deflating and shrugging.

Suddenly the room got VERY quiet with that and Jet and Spike exchanged wincing expressions that where not lost to Arthur.

The Doll blinked behind the cage door.

"We…are…gone from Earth?" The Doll asked looked at them both then up at the ceiling towards Faye. "Right?"

More silence.

On some level this was rather gratifying for all the crap that had just been dumped on Spike’s shoulders to FINALLY get to that stupid toy that had previously had all the advantage, but on another it was more weight to deal with-so Spike elected himself as spokesmen.

"Well, we went after Puck for his 10 Million woulong reward so that we could pay for new heating coils for the engines." Spike told him.

Arthur’s eyes got as big as bowling balls in shock as his mouth dropped and very nearly hit the floor. He instantly scrambled forward and grabbed onto the bars, rattling them furiously.

"WE’RE STILL ON EARTH!" The Doll yelled.

"Well yhay, the engines need heating coils to power the engines, Puck’s bounty was suppose to pay for new ones." Spike explained.

Arthur was having a heart attack and he fell backward onto his puffy rear end with a thwamp.

"B-but the Council will find you!" He shrieked. "Do you have ANY idea the lengths they will go to in order to get Spike and me back? Gandolf is one of the highest ranking computer hackers in the entire galaxy, if you have even made a PHONE CALL while I was stuck in that case, they’ll know where you are!"

The Doll looked at the Bebop crew through the bars worriedly.

"You didn’t…did you?"

The roadway near the docks was bordering the ocean that was churning in the darkness quietly with soothing swishing of water rolling over water and cresting into the manmade structures of the wooden docks and various scattered ships that where a few miles apart.

As the black car rode along the ocean line, driving through the lush ocean air- one of the backseat windows was rolled down, the moonlight glowing down softly into the car as Oberon allowed the winds and the beautiful crisp smell of the water flow through him from the open window.

Merlin was sitting across from him silently as he contemplated his own thoughts in silence, his eyes closed in meditation.

With his arms folded over his chest, Gandolf watched through his computer goggles inside the net, yet disconnected enough to separate the computer world with reality of his surroundings. His glowing wolf eyes scanned the churning dark waters, watching as the docks passed by out the window, the wind fluttering his hood and hair.

Next to him Oberon sat, loading an ammunition clip into his weapons chamber with a loud snap of military precision- his past Syndicate experience making this action as engrained and easily as breathing- and his long elegant fingers gracefully pulled the hammer back and dropped it back into place securely.

"Tell me," Gandolf spoke, his soft voice whispering among the soft cresting of the ocean as his wolf eye flicker to the side to peer at Oberon smirkingly. "Do you plan to kill him?"

Oberon’s fingers stopped from securing the new chamber into the butt of the gun, and he looked out from under his hood at his brother Council member darkly.

"Meaning?" He asked quietly, not failing to notice Merlin’s own demonic eyes flickering to the two Council members.

Gandolf smirked for real this time and leaned back in his seat, draping his head back with a sigh as he allowed his mind to float through the world- trying to find the right conduit that he was looking for in the Net. Despite his age and rank of being the youngest member of The Council of Wizards he was not naïve or stupid. Dissecting and manipulating peoples thought and actions- and sorting through their psyche was like hacking into a computer.

Which was where Gandolf was the true Wizard master.

For nearly all his life, computers where his own self and soul. Discovering people weaknesses and manipulating them to his advantage was no different then hacking into an ISSP mainframe and de-coding files to read.

You pulled apart the codes, to read the files for your own advantage. And Oberon was an open file to those who wanted to read him.

He was humiliated and still feeling the burning sting of it. What had begun as a simple hit and retrieval mission that Merlin had put Oberon in charge of had turned into a large mess and the loss of their King to bounty hunter’s. Oberon held ranks in the Council as a skilled assassin that had never been beat, but because of one Cowboy- the mission had turned into a mess and made Oberon look like an incompetent fool.

And now, because that same Cowboy- Spike- had the Recorder in his brain, they had no choice but to make him Arthur. Now, they had to go clean up Oberon’s mess and when they succeeded the Second Wizard had to revere and obey the very person in which had humiliated him- even though it wasn’t truly Spike.

Which is what Gandolf saw through.

Anyone could see that Oberon was angry over his fall, but Gandolf saw past that and deeper. Oberon wanted blood, Spike’s blood, because this had become personal and in order for the fight to be fair and for him to re-assert his own strengths it had to be Spike he fought.

This wasn’t about loyalty anymore.

It was about power and dominance.

Pride.

The Wizard leaned forward and to Oberon so that his lips hovered a few meters from his ear to whisper so that Merlin wouldn’t hear. "You are a fool." Gandolf whispered as he looked at Oberon steadily amused. "This is no longer a mere issue of loyalty to out Lord Arthur for you. This is about fighting Spike. A test for him and you to see who is truly more superior."

Oberon jerked his head back and glared at a snickering Gandolf and he bared his teeth slightly.

"You are arrogant and presume." Oberon said in a low voice darkly.

Gandolf let out a soft laugh. "I do not think so, Lord Oberon." He sneered. "Hatred is the most potent emotion in the human psyche, and it surrounds you like fog on a Moore and pumps through you’re veins like acid."

The 3^rd Wizard smiled at Oberon innocently. "You want death."

Merlin looked up from where he had sat silently meditating, his eyes slowly rising from his lap and glanced at his apprentice and their newest recruit with no expression. But the flicker of carefully concealed interest in his blue demonic eyes was not missed as he watched his two comrades.

Oberon’s icy red eyes grew as cold as a storm and just as clouded with anger as he slowly leaned back a few inches from Gandolf and glared- his shoulders shaking from barley contained rage. He was a 2^nd Wizard above Gandolf and yet the younger Wizard was smirkingly throwing him down in front of Merlin.

Discrediting him.

Oberon carefully leaned forward once as used the muzzle of the cool gun he held to tilt Gandolf’s head to the side slightly- the latter amusingly cooperating for his own amusement- and Oberon carefully trailed down from his chin, down the side of this throat to the notch of his neck.

Oberon raised an eyebrow then cocked the gun against Gandolf’s throat softly and tilted his head.

"I could kill you." He stated plainly.

Gandolf was no intimidated and smiled at him once more coyly.

"Enough." Merlin’s smooth voice cut through the air like a knife as his glowing blue eyes flared with unreadable emotion. The leader looked up from under his hood and he tilted his head at them both.

"Enough." He repeated quietly, his tone leaving no room for discussion as he carefully watched them. "We are all sharks but our blood is flowing in the water. Instincts tell us to fight and battle to kill the source of that blood for power but we will NOT kill one another."

Oberon slowly looked back at Gandolf and gritted his teeth. Merlin was right. They had to get Arthur back and battling amongst themselves would not get that done.

Oberon glared at the younger Wizard, rage still burning but slowly pulled the weapon away, clicking it back onto safety as he leaned back in his seat and slid the gun into his cloak, leaving Gandolf to raise an eyebrow.

"Perhaps." The youngest Wizard agreed and leaned back in his seat and the goggles glowed softly in the darkness, casting an eerie glow over Oberon and Merlin as he watched them thoughtfully.

"But when all is said and done, and everything is in place for the new uprising of Arthur, how many Wizards will that leave?"

Merlin frowned and his unnervingly supernatural eyes flickers to the side to look out the window at the ocean silently as his thoughts washed over him silently.

Oberon’s eyebrows rose in carefully concealed surprise at that comment. He looked and carefully inspected the younger Wizard beside him.

What he had just was not for all ears, but for the ones willing to listen for their own agendas. The hidden meaning in that sentence obviously meant for Oberon as Gandolf watched him steadily.

An unseen alliance for obtaining both proposes.

Gandolf smirked at the hesitating expression on the Wizards face- or what was revealed of it from under the hood. Merlin gave no indication that he understood it- how could he? He was fighting this battle for his King, for loyalty.

Gandolf had his own ambitions for being in the Council of Wizards- but for Oberon it was about re-earning his original status. At any cost he wanted to face off with Spike once more to prove, if not to anyone else but himself- that he was superior. When Arthur had been King of the Council they had truly been united. But since his fall and ‘death’ the times where changing like the ever churning ocean outside the car.

The question was- would Oberon go to any lengths like Gandolf himself to obtain it?

Of course he would. Pride was the souls vanity.

And a bleeding ego was a wound that never healed with humiliation to burn it as a constant reminder.

A weakness in the male genetic code he supposed. But Gandolf did not concern himself with such petty reasons. In order for anything to work he needed at least one other members alliance and Merlin was to devoted to King Arthur to have any hopes into manipulating.

Power after all, where the forever constants of war.

"The blood in the water." Was all Oberon said as he looked at the Wizard with a raised eyebrow of mock curiosity.

Accept.

Gandolf smiled even wider and began to chuckle under his breath as he turned back around and folded his arms once more, sinking back into the Net satisfied. There the younger Wizard leaned his head back and allowed himself to be enveloped in the virtual world as he formulated his thoughts quietly for his own proposes.

They had been speaking in barley a breath of a whisper, and making it impossible for anyone- even Merlin to hear them who was across from them watching the scenery slow as the car approached the location they where headed to.

Merlin opened his eyes when the car began to slow at the mouth of Pier 33. His demon-possessed eyes slowly rose and fell on his two comrades and he tilted his head at them.

(Heard?)

| The Real Folk Blues start to play |

And quiet frankly it was creeping Faye out.

Sitting across the coffee table in the chair, the skilled gambler had a deck of cards laid out in Solitary formation and was carefully overlooking her options for grouping what cards she had. But her eyes kept straying from the comforting world of the cards numbers and puzzles to watch a frighteningly incoherent Spike.

When she looked up at him again, Spike’s eyes where fixated on the ceiling fan- as if it held some sort of secret knowledge that only he could see. But his eyes didn’t have any expression in them. They where glassy- out of focus, like he was in a coma but awake.

The living dead.

Faye repressed a shutter and forced herself to look over at something different- for some strange reason unable to look at the card game she was holding. Faye looked over at the end of the coffee table where Ein’s Kennel cage still sat- the doll, no, King Arthur, was lying against the cage door looking at his foot and limply jiggling his foot to hear the bell on the end of his curly elf shoe jingle, seemingly depressed himself.

Faye looked down at the black number 8 clover card she had resting on the top of the her spare cards and sighed, her breath quietly meeting with the heavy air, and churning oxygen that was lazily being churned out by the slow turning of the fan.

After listening to the Interactive Dolls story, Spike had been disturbingly quiet, (Which was very unusual for him.) Jet had taken Edward to the engine room to try and have her help him repair the engines for marginal travel in the Atmosphere of Earth for some protection against the raid that was surly to come from the Council of Wizards. The caption of the Bebop had ordered Faye to stay behind and watch over Spike, to make sure he didn’t fall asleep and remain alert.

But for the past fifteen minutes- any attempts for conversation that she had tried to make had been met with simple one worded emotionless answers from Spike and from there it had died to silence when he just gave up talking to her all together and didn’t bother answering.

For the most part she wasn’t sure if the Device- the Recorder- was affecting his brain more severely, or if it was just them in particular. It wasn’t like they where particularly close or friends or anything and now that she was suppose to guard him, the Bounty Hunter wasn’t all that sure what to do or what to say. It was easy to kid and insult someone in general, but now Spike was dying- or rather his mind was- and she felt like if she didn’t try to be nice or watch what she said or something he might break like fragile glass or maybe even die.

Faye supposed everyone got that way around dying people. When she was recovering from awakening from Cryogenic sleep in the hospital, there had been two men- father and son- named Gregory Bails, the son, and Scott Giver, the father. They had assigned Scott’s room next to hers and Scott had gone to the hospital for a minor heart flutter and Faye only remember them both because they where both constantly arguing over the business they owned so loudly that she heard them.

Gregory and the Doctor had stood outside her door talking about the condition of his father and his heart flutter had turned out to be heart cancer. Since the news, they had both been quiet and seemingly uncomfortable in on another presence, each trying to futilely making feeble happy-conversation. To make it seem that Scott wouldn’t really die in three months and plastically mask the painful fact that Gregory’s father would die.

Faye sort of felt like that now.

She had felt that way only previously before when Spike had come back from fighting Vicious after he kidnapped her. (He only went for his own reasons but freed her first anyway.) For the first time she had tried to be semi-nice to him when he woke up, his entire body masked and caged in a body cast from falling out the Cathedral window.

"You sing off key."

Well, turned out that small sliver of niceness wasn’t long lived after he said that. It was a sort of his own way of saying ‘back off no pity is wanted here I’m fine.’ (Besides being nice to Spike was like trying to be nice to you’re annoying older brother. Not that she thought of him as anything more then just annoying that is.) So she just happily- greatly- accepted that and things where back to normal. (Well, after she threw the cards at him annoyed.)

But now Faye felt like she was back to having to be nice because of his pending condition. Which annoyed her still- because while she felt unconformable, Jet was still responsible, albeit concerned, but capable excepting Jet. He was still treating Spike like Spike, why couldn’t she?

Because treating Spike like Spike like Faye generally did would like be hitting a dying man. And the principle was just the same.

And Spike was the first person she…knew somewhat personally that was going to…die.

So, Faye simply let the silence hang in the air since it was more comfortable for them both, as she examined all her piles of cards she had grouped in the Solitary game, and frowned as she began to go through her spares- trying to find a red 7. But she still glanced up over the cards to look at Spike curiously.

That blank stare remained as his eyes had finally stopped roaming the room and the bounty hunter was just staring at…nothing.

She concentrated on his chest and breathed quiet sigh of relief when she saw his chest move up and down rhythmically with breath.

Faye finally found a red diamond 6, and was about to put it over the black spade 7, when Spike’s voice suddenly jolted her surprised.

"What kind of vegetables do you like?"

Faye froze and looked up to see that Spike had turned his head to the side and was looking at her curiously through the Recorders yellow lenses- the first show of emotion in the past hour.

And Faye blinked- not quiet sure how to take that question and to be frank, rather confused by it.

"What kind of vegetables do you like?" Spike repeated slowly. "I know everyone doesn’t’ like them, but you have to eat them because it’s good for you so you had to have eaten them at one point. Out of all the veggies, which would you rather eat?" He asked.

"I like peas!" The Doll piped up helpfully.

Faye continued to stare confused.

"I…uh," She stuttered. "I guess I would have to say that I like…carrots?" Faye randomly threw out an option as if it where more a question of approval for Spike and shrugged in defense of her choice.

"I hate vegetables." Spike said softly, turning back to look at the ceiling un-focused.

I wish he’d stop doing that.

"Is a onion a veggie?" Spike asked after a moment of more silence- this time the air hanging with confusion on Faye’s part.

"Peas are good. Their round." The Doll continued, more to himself as he jiggled his foot.

"Yhay." Faye answered as she set down the red card and looked back at Spike. "Why?"

"I think I’ll be a onion." He said nonchalantly as he blinked lazily behind the lenses, his eyes half-closed in through as he softly thought out loud. "I always liked onion rings, maybe I’ll be a onion."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Faye demanded as she started to shuffle her small pile of cards recklessly. She briefly wondered if he was hallucinating and just rambling- and stopped a moment to watch him carefully, slightly worried. (More so then she would actually like to admit.)

"That’s what a vegetable is." Spike said and turned to look at her. Even though his eyes where tired and laced with sleepiness, she saw he was deadly serious and very much lucid. "I looked the word up in the dictionary once. A vegetable is defined as, ‘Like that of a plant.’

"Death doesn’t frighten me." Spike said, so abruptly that Faye thought she was switching conversations. "Nothing really ever dose actually. But for the first time I think that would really frighten me. Ending up as…just a shell. Nothing. A vegetable with no thoughts whatsoever, just lying there as a living corps. Like a zombie."

Suddenly it occurred to Faye what Spike was talking about. Not rambling or incoherent speech, he was worrying. Over the situation he was in and the state he would inevitably end up in if they didn’t find some sort of way to stop the Recorder from completing it’s program.

Death was a something Spike didn’t fear because he had nothing to lose and it was an unknown adventure to him. But ending up lifelessly without a brain or any remaining traces of yourself and trapped inside you’re still living body without thought or care was…purgatory. A cage that Spike didn’t want to be trapped in.

Uncertainty.

He would go out kicking, punching, and blowing up as much of everything as he could before anything took him down fully, but he had nearly died inside his mind twice, barley forcing his way back both times. And it was getting harder and harder to keep that Data wall that wanted to drag him back into darkness at bay as he fought to remain alert. Not knowing what was going to happen to him originally was fine because he thought he had a fighting chance, but now he knew he was up against…the very nothingness of his mind and the oblivion he would become if the Recorder wasn’t stopped.

That wasn’t death. It was…hell. Worse.

Spike would end up a vegetable in a coma.

And for the first time in his life, he wasn’t sure what to…feel, or make of that. He wasn’t afraid but uncertainly was gnawing at him in a very real simulation of it.

And Faye had no answer for that.

"Well…" She said, shifting in the chair as she looked at the cards- racking her brain for something to say. Something comforting? "I’d think you’d end up like a cabbage."

Faye blanched at what she just said but straightened up and looked at Spike squarely. She had no idea WHY she just said that, but it seemed to be something that she would say.

And she couldn’t stand the feeling of her being on a Deathwatch anymore, let along TALK about it with that very dying person.

Apparently it WAS the right thing to say, as insane as it sounded because Spike turned and looked at her surprised and slightly humored.

"Why a cabbage?" He asked, sounding amused.

"Because you’re hair is green and looks like a cabbage head." Faye continued, waving on of her manicured fingers at him- or really motioning towards his hair dismissively. "It’s stupid and messy and…green."

"If we’d base what kind of vegetable we’d end up being completely on hair, then you my dear would be thee biggest Eggplant in the garden." Spike informed her smirking, sounding very much like his old self again.

"WHAT!? A EGGPLANT!" Faye shrieked outraged. "I’ll have you know Cabbage brain that I would most certainly NOT be a damned vegetable, I would be a beautiful rose." She intoned dramatically.

"Really now?" Spike asked sounding infuriatingly more amused by that. "So then Faye, just how much fertilized would it take to make you happy then?" He asked her cheekily as he turned to look at her grinning.

And promptly met a face full of cards.

Spike didn’t even so much as life an eyebrow as the cards fell from his face to scatter on the ground and he looked at Faye simply, the latter of whom leaned back in her chair and gave him a satisfied grin.

"And you can mush peas into mush and make Pea soup." The doll offered.

Spike glared over at the cage and shook his aching head. He slowly managed to sip up and he swung his legs around to set his feet on the floor as he stretched.

"I have to go to the bathroom." He informed her.

Spikes stuck his hands in his pockets and carefully walked around the coffee table, to turn and walk up the stairs to the platform where the couch was beneath to head to the ships lavatory.

Faye looked at the empty couch and listen to his scuffled footsteps grow softer and she stood up, and walked over to the other side of the table and with a sigh began to pick up all the cards she had thrown at Spike’s annoyingly amused face.

"If you put bacon in pea soup it tastes really good." Arthur advised her as he watched the female bounty hunter pick up the cards from the caged door- earning a glare of annoyance in his direction.

Faye made a mental note to ignore all obnoxious men, (Which pretty much alienated the entire gender but hey, men where idiots after all.) and she knelt down, her fingers picking up the Ace of Hearts when a low whine caught her attention.

She glared at Arthur to tell him to shut up- thinking he was making sound effects- but when she glanced up she saw that Arthur was looking at the ceiling seemingly frozen.

Faye looked upward as well, listening hard and found that it was indeed coming from the ceiling and it was a low whinny sound.

HWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!

It was too high to be the sound of the Bebop’s engines working and it was to low for another space ship.

"Their here!" The Doll shrieked suddenly and Faye jerked back and looked at the doll as he crawled forward and rattled the door furiously. "Its them! The Council of Wizards!" His bright-computerized green eyes looked at Faye frantically. "Those are Stealth 9 ships!"

Faye had absolutely no idea what a Stealth 9 ship was, but the Council of Wizards dealt in specialized ship and weapons designs. Arthur made it very clear that the Wizards where going to go to any lengths to retrieve their King and Spike, and a raid attack was expected.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The Bebop was rocked violently and an eardrum-bleeding explosion echoed and roared.

Faye was thrown completely backward onto the floor as the ship lurched under the attack.

HHHHHHHHH!" The Doll shrieked like a little girl as he pulled on his hat worriedly as he ran around in the Kennel in circles Henny Penny style.

"Shit!" Faye yelled in surprise as she rolled over onto her stomach and tried to get to her feet.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The ship quaked and lurched once more but Faye was already halfway to her feet, and the lurch shoved her forward and she stumbled as she ran towards the archway to the halls.

"Hey! Don’t leave me here! You gotta help me!" The doll yelled after her, but Faye was to busy hurrying to the bridge.

As she jumped up, the ship rattling with the dying after effects of the blast, tense seconds remained in the spacing between, and Faye rushed into the darkened tunnel of the halls just as her COM phone went off.

<<Faye! Get up here to battle stations now!>> Jet’s voice yelled through her phone.

"I’m going!" She yelled back annoyed and rounded the corner to the stairs.

The bathroom was very dim, the general eye barely able to see inside because the lights where so low- for Spike had lowered them to that setting because of his throbbing head. His hands carefully allowed the gently running of water to stream across his skin and drizzle through his fingers, the cool rush of the water soothing his fevered skin.

Spike looked up from the sink, allowing his hands to remain under the water and his eyes fell upon the reflective surface of the mirror. What looked back at him was Spike, but his skin was pasty and pale. His eyes-, which always seemed to be half closed from a habit of squinting, but they seemed dully and lifeless under the light and strain that was being put on his brain. His hair was slightly wilted from the wild and unkempt style he generally wore, and was hanging limply.

"You look awful." Spike told his reflection, and the mirror image didn’t have much to say about that- just continuing to look miserable. Suddenly he remembered that old Earth commercial for that medicine Advil Cold and Sinus and smirked at the mirror.

"You look awful." He repeated as seriously as he could in mock imitation. He gave the reflection a pitying look and nodded. "Sinus pressure?"

He couldn’t keep a straight face and let out a snort of laughter as he looked back down at the water gently caressing his hands and sighed.

His head was at splitting levels now and the dull throbbing of pain was now consistently pounding away at him. Due to the pain, it was getting harder and harder to stay away.

Especially with that bright light in the back of his mind pulsing and pushing at him. Beckoning him to fall asleep and slip farther and farther away into the painless warmth.

He shook his head violently, making his head hurt worse purposely, and the sharp pain snapped him out of his haze that he was sinking into- very nearly letting his guard down and falling back into that light. Lately, since waking up on the couch from when he passed out after bringing Arthur back to the living room it was getting harder to retain his attention and if he wasn’t careful he knew he would fall into that light and never wake up.

An Onion.

Spike concentrated on the water and the feeling of the liquid turning icy cold and freezing his hands as it did so. He was so engrossed in keeping his attention on reality and the feeling of being aware that he missed the low whining sound that vibrated the lavatory walls.

Hwwwwweeeeeeeemmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Without warning Spike was thrown from standing in front of the small sink to collide with the small walls and he slammed against the wall, crashing down onto the floor in utter shock as the ship quaked and roared with the hit it had taken.

The mirror and sink rattled so hard and loudly that the mirror cracked, and the light above the entire lavatory shattered, leaving Spike on the ground in a rain of glass in the dark. He was on the ground, crumpled in the small walking space confused as hell as to what had just happened, the sudden darkness throwing his rather confused brain into overdrive of shock.

But he wasn’t completely in the dark. The device around his head- the Recorder- that was already glowing a soft bluish glow, lit up a small area around him, the eerie shadows playing across the metal walls and providing him some amount of light to see around by.

Spike instantly wasted no time in squirming in his position and he grabbed onto the wall behind him, feeling the out edges of the door, and he twisted to rise up a little and his fingers found the notch in the door when the small handle was, and he had just curled his fingers around it to open the door.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!!

"WHOA!" Spike yelled as the ship was rocked once more by another explosion, and the ship lurched more violently and rocked.

Spike ended up getting thrown backward once more, but he managed to hold onto the door for leverage so that he didn’t end up shattering ever bone in his body when he slammed against the wall, but the ship was rocked back and forth so he ended up pulling on the handle by falling backward and was pitched forward just as fast, slamming full force into the door- which opened and Spike ended up rolling into the hallway to slam into the hallway wall.

"Ugh!" Spike grunted as he hit the wall and fell down on his side- at lest it was his good shoulder this time- and he blinked, sitting up as the last of the rocking died to dying vibrating of the weapons.

Well this would certainly keep his attention.

Without question this was the attack that Arthur had been so worried about. Past Syndicate experience engrained in Spike didn’t even make his so much as stop or think about it as instinct took over and he grabbed on to the wall and used it to stand and took of running as fast as he could down the hallway, to get to the bridge.

Spike rounded the corner and ducked under one of the beams, rushing forward to the large mouth of the archway that led to the living room. He ran through it past the platform, and he simply jumped over the railing to land with a THUD near the coffee table.

As soon as his legs snapped him back up Spike was about to start running once more on route to the bridge when a computerized voice suddenly distracted him just as he was about to take another step forward.

"Hey! Spike! You gotta help me!"

Spike stopped short and looked around confused then his gaze fell down to under the coffee table where Ein’s dog kennel had fallen and rolled under during the attack. From inside the cage, behind the caged door the Doll’s computerized green-rimmed eye peered out at him as he grinned at him hopefully.

"What you want?"

"You got to get me out of here!" The Doll said hurriedly.

Spike gave him a look like he thought Arthur was a few houses short of a complete sub-division.

"The Council of Wizards are only attacking the ship because we’re on the Bebop! The true goal is obtaining US, and the ship and you’re friends are just a obstacle." The Doll said to him.

BBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!

The ship was hit again and Spike was nearly thrown across the room, but the bounty hunter managed to grab onto the couch before he was flying. The Kennel however was not so lucky because it and Arthur inside went tumbling and bouncing the opposite direction

BOMP! BOMP! BOMP! BOMP! BOMP!

"AAAAHHHH! AHHHHHH! AHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Arthur shrieked as he tumbled around in the kennel and went rolling inside the cage like a deranged car accident and went rolling into the refrigerator.

The Bebop lurched in the water once more in the opposite direction as it swayed under the attack and Spike clutched on tighter to the couch arm, his heals digging into the flooring as he fought to keep from going the way with Arthur.

BOMP! BOMP! BOMP! BOMP! BOMP! BOMP! BOMP!
Spike looked over his shoulder to see the kennel go tumbling and bouncing BACK in the same general direction of him.

"AAAAH! AAAAH! AAAAAAAAHHH! AAAAAAAHHH! AAAAAAAHH!" The Doll wailed as he went crashing about back to slam into the couch this time.

Spike probably would have thought that was really funny- seeing the same thing in cartoons often enough- but at the moment he saw no humor at all as he grit his teeth annoyed and held onto the couch.

Arthur was right, (As much as it killed him to admit that.) the attack on the Bebop was only for two goals, himself at the damned toy.

HHHEEEWWWWWWWWWMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM…

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Arthur shrieked as the cage was pitched forward through the air like a basketball due to the sudden assault once more- holding onto his dread-lock hat screaming like a girl. But this time Spike released his hold on the couch and his hand slammed onto the cage- slamming it back onto the seat of the couch and suddenly Spike’s face filled the cage door.

And he did NOT look happy.

Arthur let out a little gasp and backed up a little in surprise.

"Why don’t we just give them you?" He growled, his fist tightening onto the cage door.

"I’m just on half pal!" The Doll protested, seeing the need to backpedal FAST at this point. "I’m useless without you and you’re useless without me. And they’ll stop at nothing to get either one of us!"

Believe it or not, Arthur DID really feel bad about dragging all of the Bebop-crew into his problems. Sure he was willing to kill Spike in order to remain…him, but that was before and they all seemed like decent enough guys. Weird enough for him, but chivalries enough to help him.

And Arthur blinked back at Spike, watching as the bounty hunter went through an internal struggle on what to do about the situation. His discolored eyes shifted back and forth as he contemplated his options angrily.

Spike finally came to a decision and just as the ship steadied, he grabbed the lock of the front cage door, ripping it open and reaching inside to fish out a shrieking toy by its vest.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Arthur yelled as Spike whirled around, holding him by his vests and grabbed onto the stair railing, running back up the stairs.

"They want you, me, and a fight." Spike growled as he rushed into the darkened hallways. "They’re going to get all three, in reverse."

Spike ran to the ship hanger.

"AW MAN!" Arthur wailed.

They fell through the air silently, hovering and swimming gently about- the main source of the storm being the large round shaped ship that had come to hover of the Bebop, it’s bottom hatch open and raining down the orbs with a high hwwwweeeeeee

eeeeeemmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm sound.

It was utterly beautiful, and something straight out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

And it was also destroying Jets ship.

Jet was on the bridge, floating through the air on the zero gravity frantically; to go see to another one of the distressed alarms that was beeping hysterically. He just floated up and began to furiously work out the scans on the console near the ceiling when a bought of more movement caught his eye and he looked out the windows through the wind-propeller that covered the windows and saw one of the orbs powered up enough to charge, all the colors and stars growing brighter and swirling faster with the charge.

Jet looked at the diagnostic scan that he was trying to run on the strange weaponry that was raining down. He frowned and his ISSP instincts kicked in, his eyes briefly flowing across the words so fast he barley registered all the information.

Suddenly one of the orbs exploded with the swirling light, and flew through the air like a shooting star right bellow the bottom window where Jet had spotted it earlier. It shot through the air with a scream, trailing in a fiery white light stream and suddenly disappeared from view under that window.

BBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!

"ARG!" Jet roared angrily as the ship lurched in distress under explosion, and he managed to grab onto the outer rims of the screen and held on as he nearly went flying through the air. Out of the corner of his eye, past his cybernetic implant, the Cowboy saw a fiery explosion flow into the air of scrap metal that had been taken out of the hull in the explosion in a mushroom of fire and smoke.

"HEY! THIS IS MY SHIP DAMNIT! QUIET USING BOMBS AND FIGHT ME SHIP TO SHIP LIKE A REAL MAN!" Jet roared to the window at the orbs, shaking his flesh fist at the attackers angrily.

How dare they rip apart his ship with bombs like this! The Bebop was his life and precious child as far as he was concerned- despite it’s waning condition- and what he had expected to be a attempted break in a retrieval of Spike and Arthur had turned into a full out war!
And his ship was the main casualty!

The Bebop just finally leveled out in the water from rocking when Jet straightened up and tried to asses the damage and activation capabilities of the weapons when two more orbs reflected in the metal and suddenly flashed like a camera.

BBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!

"AH!" Jet yelled as the ship was so violently rocked his grip was lost on the screen and he went pitching through the zero gravity with the rocking of the ship and ended up slamming into the propeller window. He slammed into the bolted middle of it with a grunt of pain as it dug sharply into his back and pain jolted screaming into his spine.

On the far end of the bridge as Jet groaningly turned around and held onto the window to get back up, the hatch opened up and Faye came floating in.

"What the hell is all this!" She yelled and let out a yelp as Jet went flying past to slam into another wall, her own arms flapping frantically to keep in the middle of the air and from ending up in the state Jet seemed to be in.

"Orbital Bombs!" He called to her, and struggled against the console, sitting up and gripping the edge tightly with his cybernetic hand, flesh fingers dancing over the screen and he worked.

"What the hell are those?" Faye demanded.

"The ISSP created specialized bombs four years ago called Orbital Bombs. They where specialized weapons created of chemicals that allowed Napalm and a new chemical called Phenzine to interacted and charge off one another with electronically charged electrodes to fire up the chemical." Jet said hurriedly as he looped his arm around the metal bar near the screen and lurched with another explosion, not stopping his explanation. (No time.)

"The original idea was that the Napalm and Phenzine would work as a reactor, slowly building up pressure until the charges inside exploded and lit up the chemicals, charging it so much that it explodes twice as powerful as a normal bomb"

"But those aren’t doing that!" Faye said, pointing to the window. As if to prove her words true, one of the gently falling orbs swirled with power- powering up and exploding in lights, shooting across the night like a shooting star in a tail of white towards the Bebop.

The result was another explosion.

"Yhay I know. The Orbital Bombs where designed to be like mines in space, but where way to unstable."

Faye managed to push through the grativtyless air and float up behind Jet. He was working on a scan of the weapons outside and she saw a internal chemical scan of the orbs, displaying the different neuculties of the chemicals and internal networking of the bright pin points of lights. (The electronical charges as Jet just said.)

"The ISSP canceled the program. The Wizards amplified the Orbs with Fisal. The Fisal is working like fuel component that powered out in a stream, much like a chemical engine. They enhanced the electronic charges," Jet pointed to the little pinpoints of light that looked like the stars. "With sensory scanners. Their positioning them orbs charging off the bombs using the Scanners as targeting modes and when the chemicals ignite with the charges the Fisal is propelling it in the direction they’ve aimed at.

"And that would be us!" Jet said, and suddenly grabbed Faye’s red coat just as another Orbital bomb ignited and slammed into the ship. They both nearly went sailing, but Jet managed to hold onto a yelling Faye and he shoved her forward once more to send her flying towards the bridge hatch.

"Get into the Red Tail and get out there!" Jet ordered. "We need to destroy the bombs before they hit us and is I don’t get the Bebop’s main weapons on then we’re going to be resembling the final stage OF THOSE BOMBS!!" Jet pushed off the console over to a hatch on the floor, grabbing a utility kit as he floated to the floor, grabbing onto the handle and opening it up to reveal on of the main power boards underneath, he swung his legs over the edge and lowered himself down into the hole.

"What about Spike?" Faye demanded as she looked over her shoulder.

Jet was about to open another hatch to the power system when Faye called that to him and he hesitated. Truth was that, he didn’t actually KNOW what to do with Spike. The entire attack was for him and Arthur, and now that the Wizards where hear to collect their own- Jet wasn’t sure that he or any of them could protect or hide any of them. The ship couldn’t even take off and was slowly being reduced to rubble as he stood there.

Jet needed to remain on board to repair the weapons, and while Faye could deflect as many of the Orbital bombs, she needed back up. Generally Spike would be able to cover her, but his mind was so warped due to the device that he was getting more comatose with every passing hour.

Edward was out of the question; she was too young to pilot a ship.

Ein was a dog.

Jet growled under his breath annoyed and rubbed his head as he racked his brain for an answer.

"Tell him to…lay low. We have no other choice." He snapped back.

"Great." Faye said rolling her eyes- although she understood his logic, the Bounty Hunter really didn’t see a future past another explosion- and she started to push past the hatch. "Why do I have to-" She was suddenly caught off by the loud sounds of engines roaring outside the Bebop’s window.

She and Jet turned around to look past the windmills, and saw the sleek reddish fighter form of Spike’s space racer turned fighter ship, The Swordfish II.

The ship spun and suddenly lowered as it avoided one of the bombs, and swung upward- peeking its nose towards the sky as it spun back around twisting upside down as it turned in the air like a pro-aerial fighter. It was also the most distinguished flying fighting style called Swordfish that Spike mastered.

The ship shot through the air upside down and just as three other orbs flashed and exploded with light, each going to different directions towards the Bebop, the weapons activated and a hail of laser bullets shot through the air, matching the snow show of orbs like fireflies and flying through the air. The Swordfish II twisted, rolling along to the right as it fired- avoiding the other falling orbs but with specific skill that the bullets kept on course, and just before one of the orbs slammed directly into the window of the bridge it exploded as a bullet punctured it’s fragile shell.

Four more explosions followed as the round of weapons expertly hit mark after mark and the beautiful weapons where destroyed with a explosion of pure fire like the sun.

CRAK-BOOOOORRRRRRRRRMMMMM!

The Swordfish turned and swung around in the air to the right, steadying back on course- upright again- and the ship shot past the window with a roar of its engines vibrating the window frame.

<<A guy can’t even slip into a decent coma without being attacked. What’s the world coming to?>> Spike’s voiced asked over the COM on the bridge.

Jet and Faye exchanged confused and understandably shocked looks and Jet instantly pushed out of the hatch he was in, grabbing onto the railing of his station and leaning in to snap on an intercepting hail.

"What the hell do you think you’re doing?" Jet yelled into the COM. (God! He couldn’t even keep tabs on his own crew anymore! Faye was on the bridge, Ein was god knows where and Edward was…off. Spike was outside…)

<<Saving you?>> Came the amused yet confused voice of the bounty hunter. Then-

<<HELP! HELP ME! HE’S INSANE! HELP ME!>> Came Arthur shrieking voice, and the sounds of struggling was heard of the COM.

<<GET THE HELL OFF THE CONCOLSE! AH!>>

<<WHAAAA! I DON’T WANNA DIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!>>

<<GET OFF!>>

Jet opened his mouth to say…he wasn’t exactly sure, when it occurred to him- or at least fully register the situation. Spike was back in the game and obviously more then lucid enough to handle the fight.

Which mean they all at least had a fighting chance.

"Well keep it up." Jet told him, shaking his head and grinning despite the situation and switched off the COM, looking over at Faye.

"I’m going, I’m going!" She said and pushed out of the bridge through the hatch to disappear into the hall.

Jet looked back at the hatch and pushed through the gravity, back to the computer.

BBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!

Ein let out another distressed howl as the ship was once more rocked by another explosion and instead of sliding on the ground, the Bebop rocked so violently the poor dog was throwing into the air and went sailing to the right. Ein flipped through the air and gasped, closing his little doggie eyes so as to avoid watching himself splatter all over one of the walls when instead- through luck or a miracle- he was thrown through a open corridor doorway that lead into Edward and his room and he crashed onto the floor, sliding into the keyboard.

The data dog lie there shocked for a moment, a sharp pain in his leg telling him he hurt his foot- but not badly. So as soon as the Bebop stopped vibrating from the hit it had taken, he pulled himself upright on all fours and looked around wearily as the dimly lit room- paranoid of another hit. (Totally justified as well mind you.)

Ein vaguely wondered what happened to Edward since he had gone running to see what was going on from the engine room where she and Jet where trying to fix then engine at the time. But he hadn’t made it to a window or bridge because the rocking made him slid all through the hallways like a deranged hockey puck.

Ein looked around the room for his friend, whining out of worry, then looked down at the keyboard he had landed on- the soft pressured buttons that had broken his fall. He blinked in surprise when he noticed that ‘Tomato’- Edwards’s faithful computer that was practically surgically attached to her body, was missing.

Was it with her?

Without warning- just as the smarter then average Data Dog was about to start howling for Edward, the red-headed earth Hacker suddenly leaped, no correction, ROLLED out from behind a box near the door like a coin roll until she collided with a very shocked Ein- the latter of whom yelped as he was buried under a 13-year-old girl.

Edward suddenly sat up like a bobbing piece of wire and looked at her keyboard mournfully through her cyber-goggles, the staticy eerie glow lighting up a dim portion of the room and her face.

"Edward can’t find her computer!" Ed wailed, and pulled at her orange/reddish hair.

Ein peeked out from behind her, somewhat surprised that she couldn’t. Tomato was something that she never left or had out of her sight. It was like another life sustaining organ to Edward! Unless someone stole it from its place when she went with Jet…

Ein whined.

The crystal orb was suddenly shattered, the beautiful nebula interior incased within the glass walls erupting in a bright light and exploding in a bright ball of fire into the air.

The Swordfish II flew straight into the path where it originally before its weapons had reduced it into shards of glass and smoke.

The smoke and some glass lightly tapped on the window as light as snow, but Spike hardly cared or was concerned with it. His main focus and attention was totally focused on his un-wavering hold on the steering console, his shaky and waning condition making this task twice as important.

All around him, the beautiful orbs where falling gently, but where more deadly then most of the weapons he had encountered in a space ship battle. You could dodge and avoid blasts in aerial battle because it took a degree of skill and mind to control the ship in fight maneuvers and tasks.

But these orbs weren’t ships, they weren’t like attacking ships- it was like falling snow with snow flakes that where mines and blew up if you hit even one. Unpredictable, and difficult to maneuver in the hail of them, Spike was barley avoiding some of them in time to shoot them down from exploding against him or the Bebop.

You ever just have one of those days where you REALLY should just have not gotten up?

And yes, Arthur was SO MUCH help during all of this.

"WHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAA!" The Doll/King was crying hysterically as he hugged onto Spike for utter dear life and sanity, thoroughly attached to his chest like one of those alien Face Huggers from Aliens. He was in Spike’s lap, holding onto his blue coat, wailing and crying as Spike flew the ship about dangerously- but expertly, The Doll’s green computerized eyes as wide as plates and watery like.

Spike hardly cared at the moment. In fact is was much easier to deal with him when he was cowering in fear and not jumping all about the piloting area, screaming and clawing at the windows crying hysterically over the fact that they where going to get killed.

Good lord, for someone who had technically died once already Arthur sure was a baby about getting killed.

Then again Arthur didn’t exactly plan on getting blasted into oblivion to be rained down upon Earth as a fine powdery dust in the body of a DOLL!

He was just funny that way.

Spike let out a grunt as he pulled the ship into a sideways spin to avoid some more orbs, and he twisted the ship upright, and targeted four of them that where heading directly towards the Bebop’s main Antenna receiver. Flicking on the high-energy beam, the gray nose of the Swordfish began to crackle with blue electricity, and Spike concentrated on the screen as the red-crosshairs lined up the weapons with the target.

"Come on, come on-" He murmured to himself as he activated the beams.

"YES!"
The beam activated and with a jerk of the ship lurched outward in a explosion of electrical energy, programmed to go wider then usual and it hit all of its intended marks before they hit the ship, slicing through them neatly- the orbs almost hovering there entrapped in time as they slowly flew apart in half- then exploded in a hail of beautiful self-destruction in a blooming flower of fire, smoke, and chemicals.

Spike pulled backward on the steering, making the ship go upward from crashing into the Bebop- the move going smoothly like water with much practice, and the ship flew up into the air once more- turning over in a almost flip like motion to twist back around and dive straight back down into the deadly hail storm of bubbles.

"Are we winning?" Arthur asked in disbelief, looking over his shoulder from the pillow of Spike’s shirt, it’s mechanical mouth hanging open.

"Of course we’re winning." Spike said confidently and somewhat insulted. Okay, so he was occasionally impulsive and hotheaded and a lot of the times his ego controlled his mind more then he did- but he knew what he was doing at least!

But he also wasn’t too sure if he could keep this up much longer.

Because as the racing ship descended back into the storm, he felt his strength- that had originally been fueled by the desire to kick these guy’s asses into orbit and defend himself like he knew he could- slowly was draining of in the shaking that was slowly racking his body. Spike already had felt ill before hand and moving about and exerting all his strength in battling these orbs was draining off his previous desires into cold sweat and a slight nauseas feeling in the pit of his stomach as the ship moved about the air. And Spike NEVER got sick flying.

The Bounty hunter knew that whatever was warping his mind was effecting his health and doing this to him but it wasn’t much of a comfort. All the ships movements where violently sending stabbing pains through his head, and all the physical attacks on his body where mentally wearing him down- tiring him.

That faint glow of the data wall was slowly etching toward his consciousness brighter as fatigue gnawed at his psyche.

As Spike tried to keep his focus on avoiding the orbs, trying to locate the ones heading towards Jet’s precious fish trawler turned Bebop- the nauseas feeling was getting more heavy in his stomach and his breathing was more labored as his dis-colored eyes frantically darted back and forth and around behind the lenses through the window of the Swordfish II.

Arthur was watching over his shoulder wincingly, holding onto Spike’s coat tighter as he squealed in horror as they narrowly avoided missing another orb, this one literally out of sheer luck because Spike’s attention suddenly dipped and his hold on the controls did as well- lurching the ship downward unsteadily.

"AW COME ON!" Arthur yelled to Spike frantically as he shook his furiously, the older bounty hunter frighteningly dis-joined from reality. "This is so NOT the time to slip into a comma Onion-boy!"

ESPECIALLY since he was the one who DRAGGED Arthur with him on this suicidal "Whatever happen happens" mission!

Spike shook his head, trying to wave himself up from the half-sleep he was slipping into and blurrily looked out the window to try and focus in one something ANYTHING that would keep him awake.

He looked up at the blurry objects falling but they where leeching together horribly, making the sky smeared with glowing light like some sort of abstract painting. They where filling his vision and slowly and hazily fogging over his entire mind.

Arthur shook Spike again, slamming him into the seat. When Spike didn’t snap out of whatever haze he seemed to be slipping into, the Doll knew that this was getting very serious and Arthur looked over his shoulder and let out a horror filled shriek. Whirling around and grabbing onto the controls that Spike was still holding onto and Arthur jerked back as hard as he could sending the Swordfish II in a wild upright flip that nearly back flipped the entire ship.

The motion was enough to slam Spike back into his seat, and snap his head back against the seat head violently. Generally it might have knocked someone out, but it was enough to snap him out of the dream-like state he had slipped into and knocked him straight back into reality. Snapping upright once more with a yelp, Spike looked around disorientated for a moment, confused as the windows all around him where showing him the entire world was moving and gasped when he looked down at his lap saw Arthur hanging off the controls of the ship, kicking and pulling on them like a video game.

Without so much as thinking about it, Spike jerked himself forward and slammed his hand onto the remote button on the side- startling Arthur and the guns activated from the ship, a mute clatter and vibrating from inside the pit and the shots from outside showing that the machine guns where firing.

And the bullets where slamming into the orb that they where headed straight for.

CRUC-BBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!

"IIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Arthur yelled, letting go of the controls and throwing his little arms in front of his face as they flew straight into the wall of fire- emerging unharmed on the other side.

As soon as he let go of the controls Spike grabbed onto them and cut the thrusters, jerking the ship downward, towards the sea. (It was better to follow and avoid the orbs as they floated downward as opposed to upward seeing as it was more difficult to tell their trajectory or guess as how it was moving.)

"What the hell is going on here?" Spike roared as the ship screamed on the pressure he was forcing on it, but Spike ignored it- feeling a bit more clear headed and focused.

"It’s not me!" Arthur yelled, pulling at his hat and suddenly his face filled Spike’s vision as he went nose to nose and poked his finger at his chest.

"It’s YOU pal!"

"WELL EXCUSE ME!" Spike snapped and then shoved Arthur out of the way to the floor, pulling the ship up to splash the water of the sea up all around them as the Swordfish skimmed the surface along the pier. "You try having something mutate you’re brain we’ll see how stellerly alert YOU are!"

GOD! He felt like he was arguing with his little brother or something! And Spike didn’t even LIKE kids!

But the truth was he was embarrassed. Embarrassed that he had gotten distracted during a fight. His health may have been in serious jeopardy but he had been hurt and shot before while fighting and it never slowed him down or nearly gotten him killed.

Spike managed to steady himself and he pulled back on the thrusters, powering them up more for an accent as the ship leveled upward from the surface of the water into the air once more. As the ship flew upward back to the eye of the storm, the Swordfish passed by the open runway of the Bebop, and out of the corner of his cybernetic eye, Spike saw the Red Tail power out from the hanger, exploding into the air and soaring up to fly behind him, it’s bubble like piloting housing the small frame of Faye Valentine.

Suddenly the Swordfish was violently shaken as on of the Orbs that Spike couldn’t see in the back slammed straight into one of the wings, exploding and violently throwing the entire racer of course.

"ARG!" Spike yelled, holding on as hard as he could while he tried to stabilize the ship. He could see flames and smoke coming from where the ship had been hit, and the wing was badly hit- but still in tacked enough to fly.

If he could stabilize it.

His arms and hands screamed at him and his jaw was clenched so tight his teeth where sending up sharp pains in his jaw, grunting with all the exertion of trying to get the ship back to normal.

Arthur was on the floor hugging the wall as he cried, pulling at his hat hysterically as he then did a sign of the cross and said about fifty Hail Mary’s in three seconds.

ALL THESE PEOPLE WHERE INSANE!

"UGH!" Spike grunted as he felt one of his arms snap under the pressure and his already weakened strength and the ship dipped violently to the right once more and despite Spike’s best efforts he just wasn’t strong enough- or neither the ship was- in his current condition to pull the move off.

From bellow him a large looming form rose up from the sky- the Swordfishes internal alarms going off as its damaged registered sensors read a approaching ship dawning to close it it’s hull. From beneath him, the Red Tail pulled up ward and over to the right. Spike could see Faye through the bubble window of her ISSP boarder patrolling ship the Red Tail, and she was carefully positing the ship and its own extended weaponry limb near the wing. Spike blinked and watched for a moment- forgetting about the dangerous wobbling the Swordfish was doing, and suddenly Faye pulled upright on the Red Tail, flying straight up into the air, and knocking the Swordfishes wing with the Red Tails arm, giving the entire dipped side of the ship a violent shove upward, and Spike immediately used the advantage of the shove to pulled up and feed more power to the right thruster, leveling the ship as it soared forward more stabling and level now.

As Spike finally stabilized the ship he looked up through the window and could see Faye in the Swordfish’s window sending him a smirking look she got when Spike now owed her something. (Which was rare but try as he might deny it she did save his ass once in a while.) And his COM crackled to life near the piloting console.

<<Hey Cabbage brain. Looking pretty lively for a veggie.>> Came Faye’s smooth and smug voice over the radio.

Despite the insult Spike felt a grin creep up on him as his fingers shot across the computers to bring up the targeting scans.

"Don’t throw me in the broiler just yet." He murmured as he pulled the Swordfish upward and allowed the Red Tail to come up beneath him. "We can’t keep this up." Spike said through his COM to Faye- referring to shooting the orbs. Which was true. So far he had taken out about 75 in the short time he had been fighting outside, but it was having the same effect as shooting a swarm of bees with a BB gun and trying to kill each and every bee while more came out of the hive.

At that thought Spike looked up through the ceiling and looked at the huge ship that was raining the orbs down in the air. The large ship was round and glowing slightly, the bottom hatch open and allowing the orbs to float about from its inner exterior. THAT main portion was the Stealth 9 ship that Arthur had been babbling about.

<<You better believe that that thing is going to have better defenses then the Orbital Bombs.>> Faye informed Spike, knowing what he was thinking.

It was insane, suicidal and you better believe Spike was already formulating a plan around those tiny yet highly significant facts.

As Spike carefully looked at the scan of the Stealth 9 ship that the Swordfish II has run during its routine diagnostic scans, he noticed that the one weakness the ship had was that the main power source- the engines- where located INSIDE the middle of the ship, the heat source radiating the signature on the Inferred scans. It might have been well protected, but one weak point in its defenses where that the engine was located very near the hatch point. If someone distracted the main defense systems about the ship, then maybe Spike could dive upward and dis-charge the Swordfish’s main electric beams and that would destroy the engine, bringing down the entire ship.

But it was also insane in the fact that the main hatch was where all the orbs where gently falling from, and avoiding them ALL was impossible even for two skilled pilots such as Faye and Spike.

Spike cursed to himself as he looked around through the windows of the ship, trying to find some sort of clue he was missing to make this plan work. His gaze fell down to the murky and churning sea bellow and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bright flash of a explosion as on of the Orbital Bombs ignited and went trailing faster then he could follow towards the Bebop.

The Red Tail shot forward, dipping in front of the Swordfish, and the two machine guns that lowered from the bubble near the arms activated and a hail of bullets slammed into the Bebop, (Thrilling Jet to no end for sure.) but they hit two of the orbs that where directly heading for the ship, and they exploded into dust- a bit more softy since they where already half ignited and exhausted. As they did Faye pulled the ship upward and soared past Spike glaring over at him.

<<Well?>> She demanded, waiting for whatever he wanted to say be said already. She looked back out at the colorful world they had all been thrown into and all the sudden- as Spike watched the rest of the dibree from the glass orbs fall lightly into the sea the last piece of his plan clicked into his foggy brain.

"Faye!" Spike barked through the COM, "Forget the Orbs and fly in close to attack the main ship!"

<<WHAT? What the hell are you going to do?>> Faye said in disbelief, not failing to notice that only SHE had been included in that sentence.

"Just be the distraction!" Spike yelled and pulled back on the thrusters. The Swordfish’s engines where cut low and he pulled back then expertly maneuvered the ship down, into a nose-dive, pulling the ship to sway to the right to avoid the falling bombs and dived fast directly towards the churning sea.

<<WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?>> Faye cried out horrified as the ship suddenly dived gracefully towards the sea. She let out a string of curses that a lady really shouldn’t, realizing that there wasn’t any time to ask questions or fully synchronize the plan or any plan for that matter. They where quickly running out of options, because even she had realized the futility of shooting down each bomb. If Spike has a plan then she for once had to go along with and not ask questions.

Just pray he knew what the hell he was doing.

<<You’re a lot more trouble then you’re worth Spike!>> Faye roared through the COM at him but did as he asked anyway.

Spike smirked at that comment, forcing all his concentration on the incredibly risky move he was planning.

Don’t I know it.

As Spike flew as fast as the ship would fly straight for a crash course towards the abyss of water, he looked out his rearview mirror to see how Faye was doing.

Faye had pulled the Red Tail upward and quickly swung the ship at an angel avoiding the bombs. She piloted the ship through the air, swinging out of the main hail storm of orbs, into open and clear air- pulling the ship upward towards the stars and turning to fly straight directly at the Stealth 9 ship.

"What are you doing!? We’re going down! Down I tell you, and freaking ship is suppose to go UP! UP UP UP UP UP!" Arthur was wailing, rolling around on the floor panicking.

Spike risked shooting Arthur a glance and smirked once more at the panicked creation. He pulled his foot to the side and slammed his heal down on Arthur’s face, pinning his head down against the folded up case near his leg.

"GARFH!" Arthur squealed as his head was pinned and his voice came out muffled against the case as he yelled and squirmed. "MURMPH! MURUMPHTUMHFURFH!"

Now with THAT distraction muted…

Through the window and through the yellow lenses over his eyes, Spike watched with utter concentration as the dark shifting waters got closer, closer and closer. As they descended the orbs around them where becoming less and less as they where focused more in the air then falling into the water. Spike braced himself and gripped onto the console as hard as he could and slammed forward in his seat to nearly lie across the console so as not to break his ribs- just as the ship dived straight and nose first into the water.

FHWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

The entire world shattered.

Whatever plan Spike had cooked up it had better work and better work fast!

Faye pulled the Red Tail upward to fight the main ship to provide a distraction.

| The theme song TANK starts to play. |

To be continued...