Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Lullaby for the Shattered Soul ❯ Prelude ( Chapter 1 )

~Disclaimer:~ I do not own Cowboy Bebop. The fact that I have to tell you this rather worries me.

A/N: Super-short PROLOGUE, not really a chapter.

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Prelude

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"Howdy, amigos!" a strident Spanish voice cheered over the fuzzy static of the old vid-screen onboard the Bebop. "How're all you 300,000 bounty hunters in the solar system doing?"

"It's time for BIG SHOT! The show that brings you information about fugitives!" A feminine voice quickly replaced the Spanish man's, belonging to a curvy blonde in a skimpy cowgirl outfit and currently winking seductively at the camera, wielding a heavy western accent. "Hey, Punch, tell us who's up today!"

A picture popped up on the screen, though partially distorted from the poor frequency. `Must be a meteor shower in progress…' Jet thought absently, watching the television set with a look of boredom. `Either that or Spike's kicked this piece of shit one too many times…'

His eyelids drooped lazily and the fingers of his prosthetic arm twitched against his skin, as they often did when he was either thinking or tired. The man on `Big Shot' continued, chirping out the bounty's stats in a cheerful Spanish tongue.

"Shucks howdy! First off is this pretty little lady who goes by th' name of Three-Strikes-Mae. Her real name is Kirsche McMae, an' she's a wanted murderer all over th' galaxy!"

The blonde broke in with a ditzy giggle as a distorted image of the bounty appeared on the screen. "Yessir! She's a top-class assassin with a whoppin' 29 million woolong-"

The blonde woman's voice cut off abruptly as the vid-screen blinked out. Jet frowned at the blank screen, searching the old flat couch cushions for the remote, only to have it waggled tauntingly under his nose by a smirking woman with mauve hair.

"Oi! Faye, I was watching that! God knows we could use an expensive bounty right about now…"

Faye shrugged her slender shoulders and plopped down on the weathered old couch next to Jet, stretching out and setting her boots on the coffee table. Like always, pockets were nearly empty, and food was getting scarce. They had all but depleted their emergency funds with bills from their last bounty fiasco, and Faye was certain that Jet was now feeding them stuff he found under the horribly discolored couch.

No wait, she would have PREFERED the stuff under the couch to whatever he had been serving.

"Not anymore, you're not. Without Spike around there's no use going after a bounty, anyways, especially a big one," the woman cast Jet a wry glance out of the corner of her eye before continuing. "Where did lunkhead run off to, anyways?"

"He went to visit an old friend on Callisto, so he said." The ex-ISSP officer folded his arms across his heavily built chest and closed his eyes thoughtfully. "You know how he gets when we get nosey, so better just let it lie."